En Passant
by Commander
Summary: When Amaya and Romeo are both selected to take place in a school-wide science fair, things are obviously tense between the two—and yet it's perhaps unsurprising that they forge a sort of strange friendship as they're forced to work together. Romeo developing a crush on Amaya, however? Yeah, THAT'S unexpected.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note:

Well, my fandom hopping has completely surprised me yet again.

I've written for "kiddie" shows before, so that's not the real surprise here... the real surprise here is how I got into this show in the first place. It really shouldn't have surprised me, though... after all, it's been going on two decades that I've been on this site (omg I've been writing fanfic for nearly two decades now _what am I doing with my life),_ and the point of my life I'm in right now, it was bound to happen.

That's right... I only started watching this show in the first place because of my daughter.

But, well, I was kind of thrown for a loop with how much I grew to like it. Again, it shouldn't have been surprising—I've always liked silly superhero shows with an enjoyable villain cast, after all, and obviously, PJ Masks fits that description perfectly.

This whole fanfic just kind of happened on its own. My predictable gravitation for hero/villain pairings had me formulating an Owlette/Romeo idea before I really realized it was even happening, and this was written very, very quickly, at least given my usual track record. It's also completely rated G and is probably the fluffiest hero/villain I've ever written, lol. It's seven chapters long, and I'll be posting a new chapter every couple of days as I'm able. I also intend to respond to all signed reviews as I'm able, but it may take a few days, as I'm very busy with a fulltime job, family, and house/yard work. I apologize in advance if I'm slow to respond/update!

This fanfic is, of course, dedicated to my daughter. Thanks for getting me hooked on this silly show, sweetie. :)

I hope you enjoy! It looks like I'm the first one to write this ship (not surprising; I'll be the first to tell you it's a bit out there), so it's fun pushing out into uncharted territory. I hope you'll take this journey with me... it'll be fun, I swear. ;)

…

Up until the last fifteen minutes of school, it had been a day completely unlike any other day. Perfectly _boring,_ in other words. The sooner school let out, the sooner he could get back to where he _really_ wanted to be—working on his latest evil scheme.

The truth of the matter was that Romeo Mecano, despite being seven years old, shouldn't really have remained in the second grade with his peers. His lessons at school were a complete bore to him, and academically he would have been better stimulated in the third or even the fourth grade—or beyond. But if his intelligence was more in line with his classmates, he'd lose the chance to lord it over them, and, well, basking in his obvious superiority was the only thing that made school even partway bearable. If he lost that in the daytime, sure, he'd still have the PJ Masks to gloat over during the nighttime, but, well… that didn't always end well for him.

For some reason. Because, well, _obviously_ he was better than them in every way. He was just super unlucky, clearly. Yeah. That had to be the reason why he hadn't been able to land a win against them yet.

But their luck had to run out _someday!_

And that afternoon, fidgeting at his desk while waiting for the last few minutes of the school day to slip away, Romeo couldn't stop the usual pleased, sneaky smirk spread across his face as his mind ran through his plans for the night, each step of his (quite frankly) brilliant plan fully actualized in his brain. All that was left to do was to implement it. And with those pesky PJ Masks finally out of his way, he would finally be able to take over the world!

"Class, before we're dismissed for the day…" his teacher said, cutting off the evil laugh that was about to escape Romeo's lips (which was probably for the best; he always got such weird stares from his classmates whenever he let one of those loose). "The principal's going to be making an announcement over the intercom soon about a special opportunity our school has been given."

Romeo yawned loudly, rolling his eyes. Who cared?

"And it's something _everyone_ needs to be listening to," the teacher stressed, crossing her arms and sending a firm glare in Romeo's direction.

Romeo once again rolled his eyes, but getting the hint and not wanting to be held after school for misbehavior, sat up a little straighter and tried to make it look like he cared. Hopefully the announcement wouldn't take too long.

The intercom crackled to life, and the principal's voice cut through the room. "Good afternoon, students," she said. "Before we leave today, I have an exciting announcement to make. We are one of ten elementary schools in the region chosen to participate in a multi-district, all ages science fair. Each teacher has selected one student from their class to represent our school. The six chosen students will work together on a written report on a science topic of their choosing, but will also be competing against each other with their own individual science projects. Whichever student is judged the winner will represent our school in the regional fair."

Romeo didn't have to fake perking up at this bit of news. _"Finally!"_ he said, under his breath yet still triumphantly. Finally there was a chance to actually do something more fitted to his unique, awesome abilities at this humdrum school. Finally there was a chance to prove to the whole school just what a magnificent genius he was!

That was, of course, assuming his teacher had the common sense to nominate _him_ over his simpleton classmates, but that seemed to Romeo to be practically a given.

"Here are the students from each class who have been selected to participate," the principal was saying. "These six students will meet in the principal's office immediately for more information. Our kindergarten student is… Adrian Quint!"

"Ugh," Romeo said aloud, impatiently. Why was she drawing out the reveal of the name like this was some awards ceremony? Even sitting through the first grade name was going to take far longer than he wanted to wait.

"For first grade… Amaya Devereaux!"

Okay, in comparison, impatience was a much better thing to deal with than shock and anger.

"Are you kidding me?!" Romeo snapped, suddenly and abruptly no longer wanting to be the representative from his class. Because if he was, he was going to have to work with Owlette! He was going to have to team up with one of the PJ Masks! And no amount of science fair recognition was worth that.

Amaya and her friends Greg and Connor probably didn't even realize that Romeo went to the same school as them, let alone that he was aware of who they were. It was pretty obvious, though. They color-coordinated their outfits to match with their superhero identity, for one thing. They also had the really stupid habit of talking openly about their superheroics on the playground. True, they usually did it when they were reasonably by themselves, but they did a horrible job of keeping their voices down. Romeo had been sulking against a far wall on the edge of the building one day a few weeks prior, keeping as far away from his stupid classmates as possible, when he had rather unexpectedly heard his name spoken by the trio of first graders across the way. Stealing a glance at them, seeing their color schemes, inspecting their faces as best as he could from a distance while trying to remain hidden himself, it had been very easy to put two and two together.

Not wanting to have to confront them at school, he had elected to keep his distance from them, which wasn't difficult at all. Kids tended to avoid Romeo anyway, and besides, the PJ Masks were a year behind him, and the first graders usually played on the other end of the playground from the second graders.

But it was going to be really hard to avoid them—one of them, anyway—if they were expected to participate in this science fair together.

Romeo was in a nervous sweat, not at all able to celebrate when, unsurprisingly, his name was announced as the second grade partaker. There was no celebration from his classmates, either, other than a few sighs of relief—whether they were relieved to not be selected or just relieved that this meant Romeo would be leaving the classroom in a bit was a conundrum that normally would have incensed him, but seemed like ridiculously small potatoes now. He had far more pressing matters to worry over now. Like how the heck he was supposed to manage this.

"You're free to leave class now and head to the principal's office, Romeo," his teacher reminded him.

"Ha! You don't have to tell me twice!" Romeo quickly declared. No way was he going to let anyone in his classroom onto the fact that anything about this scenario was bothering him. Jumping out of his desk and making a beeline for the door, he crowed, "All of those other kids just ought to give up now, because I'M going to win! Ha ha!" And he was already halfway down the hallway and thus barely heard his teacher's admonishing, banal statement along the lines of "this is supposed to build inter-class teamwork and comradery and blah blah blah…"

The forced excitement helped bring the real emotion back into the fray, and along with it a heaping dose of confidence to deal with the most unwanted of first grade partners. After all, Romeo reminded himself, his shock had come and gone when hearing her name on the intercom. Amaya didn't even know that he went to this school, and most certainly didn't know that he knew who she was, even if she did recognize him. Of course, she might not… he didn't have his lab or robots at school, and he didn't wear his lab coat, nor his goggles… but it would take far more than _that_ to hide his glorious villainy. Okay, yeah, she'd probably recognize him. But still, even then, he held all the cards for now. _She_ was going to be the one knocked over with shock when she saw him, and _he'd_ be the one laughing!

"This is going to be _fun!"_ he declared gleefully, only barely remembering to stifle his evil laugh again.

…

Amaya's jubilation at hearing her name called as the first grade participant had spilled out of her in the form of a triumphant holler and a leap out of her chair. She had put a lot of work into her paper on cloud formations the other week, and being selected as her class's representative felt like the highest form of her teacher's recognition of her hard work. Connor and Greg were similarly excited for their friend, giving her high fives, and even the rest of her classmates let out whoops of "way to go, Amaya!" and an excited clamor arose through the class as they all celebrated with her. The din of their enthusiasm only barely ebbed enough after the fifth grade participant was announced for Amaya to catch the principal's concluding statement: "Congratulations again to all of our talented students selected for this honor! Again, please report to the principal's office right away for further information. Thank you!"

"Will you guys wait for me after class?" Amaya asked Connor and Greg as she hastily put her notebooks and pencils away.

"Of course!" said Connor.

"We're gonna want to hear all about it!" Greg added eagerly.

"Thanks! I'll see you then!" Amaya rushed towards the door, only barely remembering to turn around before she left the room to let out a breathless "Thank you for nominating me!" to her teacher before bounding to the principal's office, a spring in her step.

 _So… we're doing a report as a group, but also individual projects. I wonder what my project should be?_ Amaya slowed herself down a bit, not wanting to appear out of breath when arriving at the principal's office. _I could do something else weather-related._ She smirked to herself. _After all, I am the only kid out of all of us who can actually fly through the clouds, so I've got a real advantage! In fact, I might have a good shot of WINNING this, even though I'm one of the youngest kids!_

She gave herself a quick, passing reminder to not get _too_ full of herself before reaching the door to the principal's office, already hearing some chatter inside. It occurred to her that she had maybe spent a little too much time celebrating in her classroom, and that she was probably the last one to arrive. An apology was already on her lips as she opened the door, bracing herself to face her older competition. "Sorry I—aaAAAHH!"

 _No way. No way. NO WAY! This HAS to be some kind of joke!_

Her reaction, of course, made it even more difficult for Romeo to hide his pleased, knowing grin. _Ha! She DOES recognize me! And man, is it making her squirm!_ Deciding very quickly that he really liked how uncomfortable this was making her, he managed to twist his smirk into what he hoped was an impatient, only slightly annoyed snarl at her, hopefully hiding any reciprocal recognition.

"That's perfectly fine, Amaya, we weren't waiting long!" the principal said. "Now that we're all here, I'd like to go into more detail just what it is you'll be doing." The six kids gathered around her desk to listen more closely—well, five of the six kids, at least. Amaya was still stopped in the doorway, the hairs on her arms sticking out, her face nearly white as a sheet. "As I said on over the intercom, you've each been given the chance to—Amaya, could you come up here in the front so you can hear, please?"

"Uh—yeah, of course," she stammered. The other students had, of course, naturally fallen into place with the older, taller students at the back, and so Amaya had to, very reluctantly, squeeze her way to the front. She situated herself to the right of the kindergartner, Adrian, keeping him between herself and Romeo, although from the corner of her eye she could see that Romeo was still looking incredibly smug and pleased with her discomfort. _I can't believe that I have to do this project with ROMEO! How did I not know that he goes to our school? Does… does he know it's me?_ The fact that she wasn't sure ignited anxious goosebumps once again, and she quickly directed her eyes away from him as the principal continued.

"You'll be spending the next three weeks working on your projects, both individual and group, during the last thirty minutes of the school day. Probably in the library, but we might be moving you around as need be. Your individual projects that you work on can be on any science subject of your choosing, and you will each present your own project, one at a time, at our special science assembly in three weeks. While these should end up, ultimately, as your own work, you're encouraged to bounce ideas off of each other as you please. Remember that even though each of you represents your class, you'll all contribute to the group report, which will be used to represent our school at the regional competition, along with the individual winner and his or her own, individual project. Friendly competition is most assuredly encouraged, but please remember that _all_ of you will be representing the academic strides of our school, regardless of who wins." She smiled warmly at the six students. "Your teachers selected each of you for this honor because of your outstanding academic records. Please remember that and treat this like the privilege that it is." She passed out some papers amongst them. "Here's a rough schedule of the next three weeks. There's also a permission form on the bottom that a parent will need to sign and return by the end of the week."

Amaya took the sheet and read it fiercely, trying to direct all of her focus on something else to curb her anxiety. Romeo, meanwhile, took the sheet with a bit of disdain, not even looking at it before folding it up and putting it in his pocket. He'd have to remember to fake his dad's signature on it later.

"Now, before you go, I've got a few handouts and reading materials to hopefully jump-start some ideas, if you need them." The principal picked up a stack on her desk. "Adrian, Amaya, and Romeo, these are for you."

"Oh please!" Romeo spat out derisively, making Amaya automatically spin her head towards him and clench her fists. "Enough with the patronization! I don't need any of your _babyish_ literature. I have enough brilliant ideas in my head to win a _hundred_ science fairs! Ha!" He abruptly cut the evil laugh short, catching himself just in time. Man, he really needed to work on his self-control.

"Watch your tone, Romeo," the principal said, a gleam of warning in her eyes. "Remember that this is a _privilege_ and you need to treat it as such." She handed the packets to the three younger students as Amaya stifled a strangely pleased giggle of her own. With how awkward and uncomfortable this whole thing was, seeing Romeo get into a bit of trouble was rather satisfying. "Emily, Brody, and Isaac, your packets are by the printer, if you'd like to come with me."

The principal stood up and made her way to the printer, the three older kids following her, and to Amaya's horror, Adrian did as well, trancing after Emily. _Oh no, come on, don't leave me all alone with Romeo!_ she silently begged, but not only was this unspoken request unheeded, but Romeo took this opportunity to slide next to Amaya, still smirking at her. "Soooo… Amaya, is it?" he asked, feigning uncertainty.

"Yeah, that's right," said Amaya uncomfortably, fidgeting and looking away from him.

"I'm Romeo." He abruptly extended a hand, remembering a second too late the social protocol one should follow when first meeting someone—or pretending to first meet someone, in this case. Every second Amaya hesitated made him feel more and more pleased. He was going to keep up this charade as long as he could.

Amaya wavered a bit longer before, reluctantly, taking his hand and shaking it. _I have to act like I don't know him,_ she thought. It was only a few more minutes of being kept in school today, right? She could keep this up for that long. She hoped.

"Just to be fair to you," Romeo said, almost dismissively, "I just wanted to let you know to not bother trying too hard on your project. I'm a super genius and can build _anything,_ so it's pretty much a given that I'm going to win. Don't waste your time trying to beat me. You're just going to be horribly disappointed."

Amaya flared up in anger. "Excuse me! I have just as much a chance to win as you—or anyone else!"

"Ha! Your bubble's gonna get burst _so hard!"_ Romeo folded his arms and shot another derisive smirk her way. "It's almost cute how mistaken you are. But mostly _pathetic._ If only you knew what you were _really_ up against, you'd be begging me to go easy on you!"

Amaya stuttered a bit at that, knowing that as much as she hated to admit it, he did have a point. He really _could_ seem to build anything, up to and including things that scientifically speaking shouldn't even exist. How was she supposed to compete with him? But she couldn't let him know that she was aware of that.

"Yeah, well, don't underestimate me!" she finally declared. "Because _you're_ the one who has no clue who they're up against! I'll show you!"

Romeo just laughed at that. _I know EXACTLY who I'm up against, bird brain! And this time, you can't use your stupid superpowers against me._

Out loud, he simply said flippantly, "Yeah, good luck with that!"

Amaya, clenching her fists again, seethed at him, but any further reaction was halted by the other students and the principal returning.

"Alright, that's all I have for you today!" the principal said. "Remember to get those permission forms signed. Your teachers will let you out of class early tomorrow. At that point, you'll report to the library. See you there. You're dismissed for the day."

The other kids filed out, chattering excitedly, and Romeo bounded past Amaya, sneering at her, "See you tomorrow!" _Or maybe tonight._ Except now he wasn't sure if he was going to be out tonight after all. Planning for this science fair was definitely going to rearrange his schedule for the next few weeks.

Amaya only gave him an annoyed glare for an answer, slowly bringing up the rear of the group as she desperately tried to process everything that had just happened.

At least one thing was for certain—this was _definitely_ not going to be just an ordinary science fair.


	2. Chapter 2

As Connor and Greg waited outside of the school for Amaya to join them, their happiness for their friend had only barely faded. "Amaya's so lucky!" Greg exclaimed. "And she's gonna do awesome in the science fair."

"Yeah, our teacher picked the right student from our class, that's for sure!" Connor agreed. "Although I wonder how they're gonna do the individual projects. It seems like the older kids might have an advantage over the younger ones."

"I'm sure they already thought of that," said Greg. "And besides, Amaya's smart enough at science that she'll probably still win, even though she's one of the younger ones."

Just then Amaya stepped out of the building, looking completely anxious and worried and not at all the happy, celebratory girl she'd been the last time Greg and Connor had seen her.

"Uh, or not…" Greg said, uncertainly. "What's the matter, Amaya?"

"Were the older kids that intimidating?" Connor asked worriedly.

"You have no idea," Amaya said, her eyes darting every which-way unnervingly. "Can, uh, can we talk?"

"Of course—" Connor began.

"At home," Amaya quickly clarified, and with one more wary glance to her left and right, took off towards their block in a dead sprint.

"Amaya, wait!" her friends cried out desperately, running after her. As she ran, she still swung her head around wildly, as if she was afraid that someone was following her, and her friends definitely noticed it.

"What's wrong?"

"Why are we _running?"_

But she gave them no answer, simply running like mad the rest of the (thankfully short) distance to their houses, opening the front door to hers and frantically motioning them inside. Connor and Greg tumbled through the door as Amaya was still frenziedly scanning her surroundings.

"What happened?" Connor asked. "Did something—"

Amaya finally snapped her head back to them, her voice hushed and urgent. "Romeo's one of them!" she blurted out.

" _What?!"_ Connor and Greg cried in unison.

"He's the second grade participant. I think second grade, anyway. It was so weird, and freaky, and I—I don't know—"

"Are you _sure_ it was him?" Connor piped up.

Amaya nodded heavily. "Yes, I'm sure. Even if I haven't seen his face enough times in the nighttime to not recognize him right away, which I have and I did, he told me to not even bother with a science project at all because he's such a genius, he's going to win automatically."

"Yep, that sounds like Romeo," Greg commented lightly.

"Did he recognize you?" Connor asked.

"I—I don't know," Amaya admitted. "I don't… think so? Except… maybe… I don't know, okay?" She sighed helplessly, flopping down on the living room couch. "This is just so weird! I didn't even realize he went to our school at all!"

"Me neither," Greg admitted.

"Do you think he's going to try something? At the science fair? Something villainous?" Connor asked.

Amaya shook her head with another helpless sigh. "I don't know. I have no idea."

"Well, look at it this way," Greg said encouragingly. "If he does try to plan something like that, you'll be keeping tabs on him and know right away!"

"That's true," Connor said thoughtfully. "It's a good thing you were picked for our class representative."

Amaya pressed her face against her hands. "Yeah, I—I'll try. This is just so… I mean, it's always been so easy to keep the daytime and the nighttime separate. I don't know if I can do that anymore, knowing that Romeo's at our same school and maybe just being a regular kid like us during the daytime, too! I never even thought about that. I never thought about our villains even _existing_ during the day."

Greg and Connor said nothing to that, but a sheepish look between the two let Amaya know that they never had, either.

"Oh man," Amaya suddenly gasped out, a terrible thought exploding in her mind. "Do you think Night Ninja and Luna Girl go to our school, too?"

Greg and Connor exchanged another nervous glance.

"Well," Greg finally said, forcing a smile, "we'd know if Luna Girl did because she'd be the one kid who had moths flying around her all day, right?"

"I don't think we need to worry about that right now," Connor said, placing a comforting hand on Amaya's shoulder. "Right now our real problem is making sure that Romeo doesn't use his science fair project for any nefarious scheme. Do you think he's going to start working on it tonight?"

"I don't know," Amaya admitted, hating how many times this afternoon she'd had to utter that phrase, "but I think it's probably a good idea to keep an eye on him tonight and make sure he isn't planning anything evil."

"Right." Connor grinned confidently, putting his fist out. "PJ Masks, we're on our way!"

Greg and Amaya joined him, Greg's tone matching Connor's, but Amaya was not quite able to muster up her usual enthusiasm, their declaration coming out of her with the same worried, unsure underscore she'd had ever since stepping foot in the principal's office.

"Into the night to save the day!"

…

Night in the city…

"MASTER, PLEASE REMIND ME AGAIN WHY WE ARE RANSAKING THE SCHOOL WHEN WE COULD BE WORKING ON GLOBAL CONQUEST."

"Really, Robot!" Romeo admonished, folding his arms. He stood on the roof of his mobile lab, a large claw hand extended from the side towards the door of the school, jiggling with the handle with both a sophisticated laser design and rough, physical manipulation. "How many times to I have to explain this? This _is_ working on global conquest!"

"THE NUANCES OF YOUR CLEVER PLAN ARE SO BRILLIANT, THEY ARE LOST ON ME." Romeo's faithful robot sidekick/minion was on the ground, working on the other side of the entryway double door. "ALSO, THIS DOOR IS JAMMED."

"Well, hurry up and unjam it! We need to break into the principal's office and find all of the details about this science fair so that I'm completely guaranteed to win. And while we're in there, we can hack into her computer and make the grades of all the other kids doing this science fair all F's! Muah ha ha ha!"

Robot stuck an arm into the gap between the two doors, which was slowly but surely growing wider. "AND THAT HELPS YOU TAKE OVER THE WORLD BECAUSE…"

Romeo rolled his eyes, wondering when he'd programmed Robot to be so sarcastic. "A world leader needs _respect,_ Robot. And how would anyone be able to respect a world leader who couldn't even win his own second grade science fair?"

"I WOULDN'T KNOW, SIR."

" _Exactly."_ Romeo hopped off of his lab, the doors still not even halfway open but still with a wide enough gap for him to fit through. "Now stay by the lab and keep on the lookout for—"

"Hold it right there, Romeo!"

"—the PJ Masks," Romeo finished dryly.

"What are you up to?" Catboy demanded.

Romeo gave a teasing shrug. "I don't know… what do _you_ think I'm up to, kitty litter?"

The PJ Masks all exchanged confused glances.

"I have no idea," Catboy finally admitted.

"Me neither," said Owlette sheepishly.

"No clue," said Gekko with a helpless shrug.

"And you'll _never_ know!" Romeo crowed. "Robot! Distract them!"

"MASTER, THAT IS A VERY VAGUE AND UNHELPFUL—"

" _Stop talking and just GO!"_ Romeo attempted to give Robot a firm shove towards the PJ Masks, but in a classic case of only somewhat unstoppable force versus very much immovable object, he merely fell over, Robot not budging at all. _"Umph!_ Why are you so heavy?!"

"BECAUSE YOU FASHIONED ME OUT OF TITANIUM ALLOY, STAINLESS STEEL, AND—"

" _And obviously too much sass for your own good! Just GET THEM!"_ Romeo screeched, giving Robot one more shove that did absolutely nothing before squeezing through the crack in the doors, remembering to slam them behind him before any of the PJ Masks could follow him.

While he had been expecting the PJ Masks to show up, he hadn't thought they would be here this early, as he hadn't left any of his usual daytime calling cards; heck, he hadn't even known himself that he'd be spending his evening this way until it was nearly dark anyway. He was now crunched for time and had to hurry down the hallways and back into the principal's office quickly to get what he was after.

Stupid PJ Masks, always ruining everything.

He must have freaked out Amaya enough earlier that afternoon to make her want to preemptively check up on him that night, Romeo realized as he turned the handle to the door of the principal's office and hurriedly made his way to the computer. Probably hadn't been the smartest idea to antagonize her as much as he had.

He smirked to himself as he inserted a small flash drive into the computer. _That was still fun, though._

After merely fifteen seconds of frenzied typing, Romeo had easily extracted the entire contents of the principal's computer onto his flash drive. He obviously didn't need _everything_ on the computer, but there wasn't any time right now to go through every file and make the decision of whether to copy it or not. He could do that on his own computer in his lab later, when he was rid of the PJ Pests for the night. Tucking the drive into a pocket on the side of his lab coat, he quickly moved out of the principal's office and towards the back door of the school, pressing an ear to the door to listen and make sure that Robot hadn't led the PJ Masks back there with whatever diversionary tactics he was using. Hearing nothing, he carefully opened the door and stepped outside, listening to the sounds of the melee happening at the front doors.

"Come on, Robot!" Romeo cried impatiently, frustration beginning to overtake him. "Just get them away from my lab so I can get out of here already!" If only he'd had more time to fully articulate his strategy to Robot—okay, more like if only he'd had more time to come up with a strategy in the first place—

SHOOM!

A blast of something—stink gas, exhaust, or possibly something else Romeo had forgotten that he'd programmed Robot to do—shot across the ground like a shockwave, and with it came a tumbling red projectile. Romeo barely had enough time to register the danger before Owlette crashed into him, the two children tumbling back in a heap and rolling to a stop on the hopscotch court.

Furious, Romeo pushed Owlette off of him, screaming, _"Worst! Robot! EVER!_ Can't even do a simple thing like provide a decent distraction and—"

"Why did you break into the school, Romeo?" Owlette demanded, leaping off the ground and hovering above him.

"Just doing a little data retrieval," Romeo said, taking the drive out of his pocket and flashing it mockingly in Owlette's face. "I got what I came for, so I'll be on my way."

"That's stealing!"

"Don't I have the right to access my own information? I'm a student at this school, you know!"

"I'm pretty sure you have more than just your own information on that flash drive," Owlette said darkly.

Romeo folded his arms across his chest impatiently. "Well, _duh._ If _someone_ hadn't shown up and thrown a wrench in my plans, I would have been able to go through the data one by one and take only the information I needed, but you've left me with very little time, so I had to take it _all!"_

"What information?" Owlette asked harshly.

"Just science fair stuff. Kid stuff. Kind of a waste of your time to go after me for it, honestly." Romeo gave his best nonchalant shrug.

"It's not a waste of time," Owlette rebutted. "I don't care if it's not a big as you trying to take over the world or something, you're still _stealing!_ And trying to cheat your way through the science fair!"

Romeo glared at her. "Lighten up already, bird brain! You beat me all the time at night; why can't you let me beat you just this once in this stupid science competition?!"

"You said you'd beat me without even trying!" Owlette snapped back. "So why are you…"

She trailed off, her eyes growing wide, and Romeo blinked in confusion before he realized what she'd just realized.

"You know who I am?" she squeaked out.

Oops.

Well, the cat was out of the bag now, so to speak… might as well roll with it.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Romeo said with a taunting leer, "was it supposed to be some big secret, _Amaya?"_

Owlette still looked a bit horrified. "But—but how did you—"

"You and your friends Greg and Connor talk too loud. And I have ears. And you seem to talk about me a lot." Romeo smirked at her. "Which is very flattering, of course. I _am_ such an awesome villain that you just _have_ to talk about me during the daytime, huh?"

"I wouldn't be bragging if I were you!" Owlette shot back at him, her glare returning once more to her face. "Because now you _know_ that I'm going to be keeping an eye on you _every day!_ And if you try something, you know that I'll stop you!"

"Only when the sun goes down," Romeo countered, "and I'll be far away from the school by then! Face it, bird brain, I've got the upper hand this time, _especially_ with this data I've extracted from the principal's computer! Muah ha ha—"

A sudden, crunching, bouncing sound cut his evil laugh short. Romeo had only a half a second to turn towards the sound before—

WHOOMP!

Robot crashed into Romeo like a huge, wild bowling ball. The force of the impact shot him across the playground once more, slamming into the metal fence on the edge. The flash drive popped out of his hands and clattered to the ground, and despite the sudden blow and mild pain, he could still see the drive left behind him on the pavement quite clearly, and Robot tumbling and falling onto it, agonizingly, almost in slow motion.

CRUNCH.

" _Noooooooooooo!"_ Romeo cried out in despair, falling back to the ground and onto his knees. _"No, no, no, no, NOOO!"_

"SORRY, MASTER, I AM NO MATCH FOR SUPER GECKO MUSCLES."

"Woo hoo! Got him!" Gekko proclaimed, scampering into view right behind Robot.

Catboy bounded his way to the back of the school as well. "Are you alright, Owlette?"

Owlette nodded. "I'm fine. Romeo's flash drive isn't, though."

Angrily, Romeo shook off his anguish, throwing a glare at the PJ Masks… especially towards Owlette. "You may have destroyed my flash drive, PJ Masks, but even without that data I'm still, like, 99.9 percent sure that I'm going to win that science fair! All you did was destroy that last .1 percent!"

"If you're so sure you're going to win, even without cheating, then why go to all this trouble?" Owlette asked him, genuinely confused.

Romeo jumped up on Robot's outstretched arm, shooting Owlette a knowing smirk. "I'm not leaving anything to chance, especially after telling that girl Amaya that I was sure to win! Come on, Robot, let's go home and get to work! I'll deal with you next time, PJ Masks."

With that, he directed Robot back towards his lab, Robot's "I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT JUST HAPPENED" and Romeo's "For the last time, it's school stuff! You wouldn't understand!" cutting through the tension a bit, and in an instant they had hopped into the lab and sped off into the night, leaving the PJ Masks on the quiet schoolyard.

"What was all that about?" Gekko asked Owlette.

Owlette leaned down to examine the crushed remains of the flash drive embedded in the pavement, still a bit taken aback from the day's, and now the night's, chain of events. "I guess he was going to use whatever was on this drive to help give him an edge over the rest of us in the science fair." Picking up the pieces and looking back up at Gekko and Catboy, she added solemnly, "And he knows who we are. I, uh, I guess we're not the greatest at keeping this a secret."

Catboy and Gekko shared a guilty glance. "Oops," said Gekko.

Catboy gave an awkward shrug. "If you think about it, with us all going to the same school, it was probably just a matter of time before he found out anyway," he rationalized uneasily.

"We'll have to be extra careful from now on, though," Owlette warned.

"So will he!" A smile returned to Catboy's face. "We know who he is now, too."

"Man, school's gonna be really weird now," Gekko mused.

"You're right," Owlette declared, standing up straighter, her eyes gleaming with confidence. "Romeo _does_ need to watch his back. Because now that I know there's no point in hiding anything from him now, I'm going to give this science fair project everything I've got. And I'm going to beat him." She barked out a laugh. "He'll see I'm more than just a .1 percent!"

"Come on, Owlette, it's just a science fair," Catboy said lightly. Owlette folded her arms crossly.

"The important thing is that we beat him now, right?" Gekko said. "He didn't get the stuff he was after."

"That's right!" Catboy said. "Even if he does end up winning, it won't be by cheating." He punched a fist in the air triumphantly. "PJ Masks, all shout hooray!"

Owlette almost didn't join in their victory cheer, too caught up in mentally breaking down every last detail of what she had to do to win the science fair, because that was the most important thing… oh no, wait, saving the day was the most important thing. Right.

"'Cuz in the night, we saved the day!"


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Note:

Just a few things! First of all, I'd like to thank everyone who's reviewed so far. I'm glad you're all giving this fic a chance! Things will start picking up these next few chapters. To answer OwlLegendary000's question, "en passant" is a chess move that translates to "in passing" in French, I believe.

…which leads me to the other thing I wanted to address, since this is the chapter that the chess theme first comes into play! The idea of a hero and villain sitting down to a game of chess is a very intriguing one that I've liked for a long while now… for a decade, at the very least! It was about a decade ago that the author The Illustrious Crackpot wrote a Powerpuff Girls Mojo/Blossom fic called "Checkmate" that I was very inspired by. I hope I didn't pull too much from it and kept it at "inspired by" and not "lifted from", lol. Anyway, I just wanted to give credit where credit is due. Enemies engaged in a (relatively) friendly bout of chess is a very old idea of course, but I definitely had that story specifically in my mind when I was writing this. That fic's in my favorites if you want to check it out.

Thanks again to everyone for your interest in this fic! Here's chapter three! :)

…

The next day, Amaya was the first of the six science fair students to report to the library at the assigned time, and she immediately moved to the science section of the non-fiction wings, directing all of her concentration on researching a possible topic. _Here are the books on weather patterns… is that too obvious? Should I go for chemistry instead? Or geology… what about the tectonic plates? Or something else?_ She sighed to herself, feeling a bit overwhelmed. _There's too much to choose from…_

Chatter interrupted her thoughts. The three oldest kids—Emily, Brody, and Isaac—walked in the library and past Amaya, engaged in an important sounding conversation. Once again, Adrian was bounding after Emily faithfully. Upon seeing Amaya, he grinned and announced to her, "That's my big sister!"

"That explains that," Amaya murmured to herself.

Romeo entered right behind Adrian. He shot a smirk in Amaya's direction. "Hello, Amaya."

Amaya stiffened uncomfortably. "Hello, Romeo," she said, keeping her voice level.

"Hey, you two!" Emily said, addressing Amaya and Romeo. Brody and Isaac redirected their focus on them as well. "The three of us have been talking about the group report we're all supposed to work on together. We were thinking we could use it to tie all of our individual projects together and show how they all interweave in the grand tapestry of science."

Romeo rolled his eyes. "Where did you come up with _that_ cheesy metaphor?"

"That sounds like a great idea," Amaya said, talking over Romeo.

"I'm glad you think so!" said Emily. "So we've already told my little brother that he'll do a vinegar and baking soda volcano. You, girl, you'll do stuff with static electricity and balloons, and for you, boy, you'll do—"

"Excuse me!" Romeo interrupted, quite offended. "I'll be deciding my _own_ project, thank you very much!"

Amaya was also taken aback and a bit insulted, although she tried to keep that out of her voice. "I want to come up with the idea of what I do for my project myself. It wouldn't really feel like my project if I didn't get to even decide what it is."

Isaac snorted at the two younger students impatiently. "We need for the report to be coherent, and the only way to do that is to—"

"Save your breath!" Romeo snapped. "You're not going to boss me around. Come on, Amaya!" He dramatically turned and marched away, as Amaya, very confused, followed him.

"How _insulting!"_ he fumed after they were a distance away, in the study corner of the library. "No one tells me what to do! Especially if they're going to tell me to do some condescendingly _easy_ little science project like make a bottle rocket or something. They don't even know who they're talking to!"

Amaya was no longer able to hold back her ire, either. "Yeah, that was messed up. Just because we're younger than them doesn't mean they can just order us around like that! These are supposed to be _our_ projects, not theirs!"

"They'll be eating their words when they see how awesome my project of—" Romeo stopped himself, partly because he was still mulling between a few different ideas, and partly because he didn't want to give Amaya any ideas. Despite the fact that they were temporarily united against the older kids, they were still competitors. And archenemies.

"Your project of…" Amaya prodded.

"None of your business," Romeo countered, crossing his arms. "It's better than _yours,_ that's all you need to know."

"You don't know that," Amaya said angrily.

"Oh really? What _is_ yours?"

Amaya faltered.

Romeo laughed at her. "I knew it! You don't even have one yet."

"Well, excuse me for being a little busy last night and not having the time to think about it!"

"Are you kidding?" Romeo rolled his eyes at her. "You can't blame me for that. I took up maybe twenty minutes of your night, tops. You owe me a new flash drive, by the way!"

"I do not. It's your fault for trying to use it to steal information." Amaya gritted her teeth. Her anger from the older kids' condescending tone was only burning brighter thanks to Romeo. Her earlier focus had evaporated; she was in no mood to do research at the moment. Turning away from him, she huffed her way over to the game corner, where a few cases of dominoes and a chessboard sat on a table pushed against the wall, the chess pieces scattered across it and onto the floor. The disorder wouldn't normally have bothered Amaya, but at that moment it called to her anger, and grumbling harshly to herself, she quickly began gathering up the pieces and placing them back on the board.

Of course, the chessboard itself was a bit of a sad reminder to her that after learning how to play chess a few months ago from her older sister (and enjoying it immensely), she hadn't had the chance to play at all since then. Her sister was in the seventh grade and very busy, as she liked to remind Amaya constantly. Her parents hadn't had the time to learn how to play, either. Connor and Greg had the time if they had wanted to, but they hadn't seemed interested, so Amaya hadn't pushed the issue. Still, though, she did miss playing. Lining up the pawns on the correct rows, she found herself pondering the possibility of somehow incorporating chess into her project. It would give her an excuse to play again, at least.

"What are you doing?" Romeo asked her, half scoffing but also half curious.

"Picking the chess pieces up and putting them back on the board," Amaya answered matter-of-factly, placing the last black piece on the board and moving over to the other side to continue with the white pieces.

"Hmph!" Romeo snorted at her. "As if you know how to play chess."

"Of course I know how to play chess!" Amaya snapped at him. "It's been a few months since my sister taught me, but I still remember how!" She quickly placed the rest of the white pieces on the board and gave Romeo a challenging look, daring him to acknowledge that she'd set up the board correctly.

Romeo, however, just smirked at her tauntingly. "Oh yeah?" He plopped down in the chair across from her. "Prove it!"

Amaya threw a wild smile back at him, all of her previous negative emotions washed away with joy that she'd finally found a chess partner… that is, until she remembered the reason why she was in the library in the first place. Her smile faded. "As much as I'd like to, we really should be working on our science projects."

"Oh please." Romeo flicked a hand in the air dismissively. "I'll be able to complete my project in my sleep." He leaned over to pick up one of the black pawns in front of him.

"Wait a minute!" Amaya cried out, stopping Romeo in his tracks. "White always gets the first move in chess!"

Romeo stared at her, annoyed and a bit taken aback.

Amaya smirked, a chuckle in her voice. "What's the matter? Do _you_ know how to play chess?"

"Of course I do!" Romeo snapped.

Amaya swiftly grabbed a pawn and placed it two spaces ahead with more conviction than anything else she'd done that day.

"Then _prove it!"_

…

Upon reporting to the library after school the next day (and again being the first one to arrive), Amaya was determined to not let anything—anger, chess, Romeo, her competitive spirit, or any combination of the above—get in her way of research this time. She moved through the nonfiction shelves of the library, pulling out all of the weather books she could find. Settling on doing another weather-based project had been a rather quick decision once she had taken the time to adequately weigh her options. Her ability to fly through the sky as Owlette gave her a definite advantage in that field, and, well, with pushy older kids, a suck-up kindergartener, and her mad scientist archnemesis as her competition, she needed all the advantages she could get.

Having amassed a rather large collection of reading material, she made her way up to the front desk to check them out, the other kids now with her in the library but paying her no attention. Pointedly so, Amaya feared.

She shook her head to herself as the librarian scanned her books and her student ID card, pushing the idea out of her mind. That was silly. They didn't _hate_ her just for refusing to do the project they'd assigned her, did they? They weren't ignoring her on purpose.

"Sheesh, do you have enough books?"

And one of them wasn't ignoring her at all.

Amaya rolled her eyes at Romeo, taking her books and ID card back from the librarian. "It's better to have too much information than not enough."

"That's still not going to help you win against me!"

"Whatever," Amaya said wearily, walking to one of the study tables and plopping her sizable stack down, selecting the largest one and beginning to read it.

She didn't get very far in it, though, for even though her nose was buried in the book, she could still feel she was being watched.

Annoyed, she dropped the book and glared at Romeo, who was indeed still hovering next to her. _"What?"_

Romeo didn't comment on her annoyance, merely looking pleased that he'd gotten her attention again. "Play with me already!"

"Play with you?" Amaya blinked in confusion. "Do you mean chess?"

"Of course I mean chess," Romeo grumbled. "What else would I mean? We didn't finish our game yesterday, and it's still set up."

"Find someone else to play with you," Amaya said, feeling a bit disappointed that she had to turn him down today. "Sorry, but I'm busy."

"There is no one else!" Romeo cried. "You're the only person who's ever played chess with me other than my robots."

Amaya was a bit surprised to hear this. "Well—look, Romeo, I'm sorry, but I want to focus on my science project today. Maybe you can get one of your robots to play with you if you really want to keep playing."

"No way," Romeo protested harshly. "You play way better than they do."

Now Amaya was _very_ surprised. So surprised, in fact, that she was left momentarily speechless.

Realizing that he'd just given her a very sincere, generous compliment, Romeo fell into a mild panic, backtracking as quickly as he could. "Th-that's the _only_ thing you do better than them, of course!" he spat out.

Amaya took only a few more seconds before finding her voice again, and with it a provocative smirk. "Then you should definitely play against them instead of me. That's the only way you'll win that match."

"Ha! In your dreams. I'll win either way; you just give me a challenge."

"Why, Romeo, that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me," said Amaya, still smirking.

"Chess is literally the _only_ thing you're good at," Romeo said quickly, feeling a bit flustered over the direction this conversation was going. He had to find a way to turn it around somehow… "Okay, fine then. If you're just going to sit here and tell me you're sure to win but refuse to prove it, I'll just put that game away."

Amaya bristled, sitting up a bit straighter in her chair. "Wait!"

Romeo shrugged, although unable to hide his pleased smirk at getting the reaction he wanted out of her. "Why bother keeping it out if you're not going to finish what you started? Looks like you finally wised up and knew there was no way to beat me. What a pity. I guess I'll have to take back what I said about you being a challenge. Now I'll just have to find someone else who _will_ be a worthy opponent—"

Amaya shot out of her chair, glaring at Romeo. _"Chess. Now."_

Romeo grinned at her with satisfaction as she quickly gathered up her books with an angry, slightly embarrassed twinge lighting up her cheeks. "You made that too easy!"

"Shut up," Amaya growled, storming over to the chessboard and dropping her stack of books on the floor, her ID card flopping off the top and landing on the floor. She reached over to grab it, but Romeo beat her to it.

"What's the J stand for?" he asked, reading her name complete with middle initial from the card.

"None of your business." Still feeling rattled over the dare she had just fallen for (and the subsequent revoking of her pledge to stay focused on her work), she sat down at the white side of the chessboard and gave Romeo a weary sigh. "Don't you think you know way too much about me by now, anyway?"

"What are you talking about?" Romeo protested. "I barely know anything about you. All I know is that your name is Amaya J. Devereaux, you're in the first grade, you turn into a goody-two-shoes bird at night, and you have a competitive streak a mile long."

Amaya irately leaned over the chess table and snatched her ID card from Romeo's hands. "Yeah, and that's _way too much!"_

"And you apparently want to be a meteorologist," Romeo added, glancing at her pile of books. "So, the little birdy's going to do her science project about the sky?"

"That's right," Amaya nodded, making herself focus more on the chessboard in front of her, pondering her next move. "Being able to do first-hand research seemed to be a good idea for this." Picking up a rook and moving it down the board, threatening his queen, she looked back up at him with a bit of a grumpy look etched on her face. "And see, there, you know something _else_ about me. You know what my project's going to be about, even though you won't tell me anything about _yours_."

Romeo bristled defensively. "I'm not gonna tell you! You'd just steal my brilliant ideas!"

"I wouldn't steal anything," Amaya protested, giving Romeo a stern look. "I'm not like you. Besides, aren't we supposed to all be working together on the report, anyway?"

"Tell that to the other kids," Romeo muttered, studying the chessboard. He could take the rook with his queen but that would put it right in the path to be taken out on Amaya's next turn by a measly pawn. Irritated, he instead retreated his queen back down the board. "They won't even talk to us."

"I thought I was just imagining that," Amaya sighed unhappily. "Are they really ignoring us just because—"

"Just because we won't play into their hands like little babies eager to be bossed around?!" Romeo dramatically and angrily slammed a fist into the table, some of his pieces of the chessboard nearly toppling over. "Sure seems that way, doesn't it?"

"It's not fair that they're treating us that way just because we're younger than them. That doesn't mean that we can't come up with good ideas."

"Yeah, we'll show them!" Romeo stopped suddenly, realizing what he'd just said. "I mean, I'll show them." Amaya continued to give him that look that was a weird mix of surprised and amused, and Romeo didn't like how that made him feel. Sighing huffily, he said to her, "I really, _really_ hate to have to say this, but… you'd better get second place! If we _both_ beat them, that'll _really_ show them!"

"Oh, I'm not going to get second place," Amaya said lightly, moving a pawn a space ahead. "I'm going to get first place. You can have second place."

"I'm really going to enjoy crushing your hopes and dreams!"

"Worry about making your next move first." Amaya sat back in her chair, giving Romeo a smug look.

Romeo scowled back at her. "I know something _else_ about you, Amaya J. Devereaux. You're _insufferable!"_

"Well, so are you, Romeo… uh…" Amaya faltered, realizing that she didn't even know Romeo's last name, let alone middle initial.

Romeo finally smirked again, knowing the reason behind her sudden lack of steam. _"Ha!"_

"You know way more about me than I know about you," Amaya admitted quietly.

Her tone caught Romeo a bit off guard. Was she fishing for more personal information from him? Amaya's earlier protest that he knew too much about her was again ringing through his head, but now it was reversed, now his sentiment regarding her. Getting close like this to _anyone_ suddenly seemed like an awful idea… and _especially_ getting this close to one of his enemies.

"I'm not going to offer up more information to bridge that gap, if that's what you're getting at," he finally said firmly.

"Yeah, I know." Amaya sat up a bit straighter. "Look… maybe we can come to some sort of… arrangement."

"Arrangement?" Romeo raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah." Amaya sighed. "I wasn't meaning to reveal anything else to you, but here goes… before yesterday, I had no one to play chess with, either. My sister's too busy, and everyone else just doesn't want to learn. And that did kind of depress me, because I really wanted to keep playing. You wouldn't have been my first choice—"

"Oh please, save it," Romeo snapped. "You weren't mine, either."

"I know," Amaya quickly said. "But, well, here we are, and… I'd like to keep doing this with you. But," she added sternly, "this isn't going to get in the way of my science project."

There was a rather long pause, one that Romeo wasn't anticipating. "Or our nighttime exploits?" he finally prodded.

"Oh! Yeah!" Amaya almost looked like she had forgotten all about that, much to Romeo's shock. "Yeah, of course, this doesn't change anything there, I'm still a superhero and you're still a supervillain and… yeah. All that." She quickly and awkwardly tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "But for now, during the daytime, I'm fine with agreeing to this… the two of us just being chess partners. Nothing more, nothing less… we can just be normal kids for once."

Romeo crossed his arms. "Normal is so overrated. Who wants to be normal? But," he quickly said, cutting off Amaya before she could speak up again, "other than that, then sure. We can arrange that. Just stop asking me about what I'm working on!"

"Deal." Amaya leaned over towards Romeo with an outstretched hand.

"I'm not shaking your hand again," Romeo scoffed.

"You're kind of terrible at making deals," Amaya muttered.

"There you go! You learned something else about me!" Romeo smirked at her in what he thought was a mocking way, but surprisingly, Amaya smirked right back. A faint thought that he needed to work harder to antagonize her flittered through his mind for only a second or two before fading away. He couldn't pin that thought over the startlingly larger thought that he liked the pleased, confident way she'd smiled back at him, and trying to figure out why made him uncomfortable and, more than anything, confused.

Forcibly pushing every thought that wasn't chess related aside, Romeo swiftly moved his knight to take the pawn Amaya had just advanced.

"Check!"


	4. Chapter 4

Despite no nighttime villains keeping her occupied that evening, Amaya was still kept hard at work. Upon getting home and flipping through her books for ideas, she finally settled on building a homemade anemometer with which to compare nighttime wind speeds on the ground and higher up. Her official base of operations for the higher altitude winds would be Greg's treehouse, she decided, but in reality she'd be getting her measurements a bit higher than that. Unfortunately, she didn't have any paper cups or plastic straws at her house to make the anemometer that night, but after telling her parents (most of) the details of her planned project, they agreed to take her to the store the following afternoon to buy supplies. Abruptly left with little else to do that evening, Amaya quickly wrote out the details of her project before turning in for the night.

The next day, after a usual day of classes and spending recess playing with Greg and Connor, Amaya didn't hurry as fast as she had been to the library, not wanting to be the first one to arrive this day. When she opened the door, the other kids all appeared to already be there, and Amaya approached Emily with her head held high, holding one of her weather books close to her chest.

Upon reaching the third grader, Amaya pulled out her sheet of paper from the previous night and handed it to her. "Here's the details of what I'll be doing for my project," she said. "Work it into the group report as best you can." And then, having stated her point, she pointedly and confidently turned and walked away from her and towards the chessboard, sitting down at her side without looking back once.

Romeo, already waiting for her on the black side, just lightly rolled his eyes. "I'm pretty sure they still don't care."

"I know. But they're still going to include me, even if I don't do what they assigned to me." Amaya placed her book on the side of the table, quickly examining the board. "It's my turn, right?"

"Yeah." Romeo leaned in, curious. "So… what's your project?"

Amaya bit her lip, not looking up from the pieces. "I don't know if I want to tell you. You might steal my ideas."

"Psh!" Romeo rolled his eyes again. "What would I want to steal any of your bird-brained ideas? I already have the perfect project that's guaranteed to win. You just don't want me to laugh at your obviously stupid idea."

"It's an anemometer."

Romeo blinked.

"I'm building an anemometer to track wind speeds at both ground level and a higher altitude." Her hand hovering over her queen, Amaya looked back up to see Romeo continuing to stare at her, a bit stupefied. She grinned widely. "Surely a genius like you knows what an anemometer is, right?"

"Of course I do!" Romeo snapped. "It's… a device to track wind speeds, _duh!"_

"And I can use it at a way higher altitude than most kids." Amaya continued to grin. "Once I get it built after school, I can begin collecting my measurements tonight."

"Cute," Romeo said offhandedly, "but it's still not going to be good enough. Mine's going to blow your little windy experiment away like a hurricane."

"That's kind of hard to believe," Amaya said with a laugh, "when you won't even say what yours is." She raised an eyebrow, still smiling confidently at him. "I bet you don't even have a project yet."

"If I didn't have a project I was already working on, I would have been taking over the world last night, _duh."_

Amaya paused for a moment at that, then shrugged amicably. "I suppose that's one good thing about all of this," she mused, moving her queen forward one space. "It's keeping you from causing trouble at night."

"Don't get used to it, birdy. Once I've won this science fair, I'll be right back to my villainous ways."

"If you win the science fair," Amaya reminded him, "you'll be participating in the regional one, so you'd still have more work to do if you wanted to stay a winner."

Romeo grimaced angrily, having forgotten about that until Amaya said it out loud. "I'll multitask!" he declared to her. "And you'll be sorry you ever mocked me! When I take over the world—"

"You can't even take over the chessboard," Amaya giggled.

" _Argh! Shut up!"_ Romeo fumed at her, his face flushing uncomfortably.

Amaya didn't even flinch at him, her bubbly smile still wide across her face.

"It's your move!" she chirped.

…

The next day was Friday, and upon arriving at the library, Romeo and Amaya situated themselves once more at their game and immediately began shooting snarky remarks towards each other without missing a beat, as if it had already become a familiar habit. This day, however, they mostly stayed away from the topics of their science fair projects, or even their usual archenemy status, instead keeping their quips to the chess plays being made.

"Any time now," Amaya remarked dryly, only barely glancing up from her Flossy Flash comic.

Romeo scowled at her but said nothing, continuing to survey the board. The past couple of days had brought out the foolhardy competitiveness of both of them, as evidenced by the number of captured pieces on both sides. The desire to get in a jab at their opponent had somewhat clouded the foresight and planning needed to win. But once Romeo reminded himself that he wanted to actually _win_ against Amaya, not just take as many of her pieces as possible, he slowed himself down and had been carefully studying his position for awhile now, causing his turn to take up quite a bit of time.

Amaya, for her part, was growing a bit impatient, but knew that there was nothing wrong with him taking as much time as he needed to decide on his next move. She'd want the same patience if it were her pondering her next move, after all.

Come to think of it, she had been a little hasty the past few turns. Romeo had the right idea, slowing down a bit. Amaya took another glance from her comic to better assess her pieces and how she could take the advantage.

The two children looked up from the chessboard at the same time, their eyes catching each other's. Romeo flushed at this, quickly looking away from Amaya, and Amaya was also startled back into her comic.

A strained stillness swallowed them for a few seconds.

Still feeling embarrassed, and not knowing exactly why, and thus feeling even more embarrassed over being embarrassed, Romeo wanted nothing more than to change the subject from… well, from whatever _that_ had been. "That looks like a stupid comic," he sneered, breaking the silence.

Amaya bristled at that. "It is not. Flossy Flash is the greatest."

"Let me see," Romeo said. Amaya looked up at him and gave him an annoyed frown, and Romeo quickly moved a pawn forward and held up his hands. "There, I made my move, happy now? And if you're going to read that while it's my turn, then I should get to read it while it's your turn."

Amaya hesitated for only a moment before handing the comic to him. "I guess that's only fair. And Flossy Flash is so great, _everyone_ should read her comics. She's the greatest superhero ever!"

"Ugh. _Superhero."_ Romeo made a face of disgust as he flipped through the pages. Amaya was about to chastise him when she saw his expression abruptly change to one of begrudging approval, stopping on the page to get a better look. "This guy looks cool, though. Who's he?"

Amaya started to smile, glad that even someone like Romeo could appreciate something from her favorite comic series… that is, until he turned the book out to her and she saw just exactly who he was admiring.

"Of _course_ ," she sighed in disappointment. "That's Dr. Quasar. He's one of the villains."

This news made Romeo grin more fully. "Ha ha! Of course! The villains are always the coolest characters. He doesn't look as amazing of a villain as _me,_ of course, but still, not half bad!"

Amaya was quickly growing to regret ever giving him the comic in the first place. "It makes sense that you'd like him, because you and him have a lot in common. Mostly that neither of you ever wins!"

Offended, Romeo snapped the comic shut. "I'm going to win this _game_!" he boasted. "Today, chess… tomorrow, _THE WORLD! MUAH HA HA—"_

"Try actually winning this game before you start talking about the world!" Amaya interrupted harshly.

"You haven't done anything to stop me! Maybe slow me down, but never _stop_ me! And just when you least expect it, I'm going to checkmate you, and then I'm going to take over the world, and you'll be begging for mercy!"

"You talk the talk, but you haven't walked the walk yet!"

"Neither have you! You haven't managed to beat me at this game yet, and we've been going at it for—"

" _WHAT?!"_

This latest interjection was two voices, and Amaya and Romeo were neither of the two. Their argument spectacularly killed in its tracks, they both spun their heads towards the source of the sound, finding Connor and Greg standing in the library doorway, their jaws slack from shock.

There was another awkward silence, even more awkward than the last.

Finally, Amaya gave a weary sigh. "I already told them that you know who we are," she said to Romeo.

Romeo immediately straightened up, a smug smile on his face. "Excellent, then I don't have to waste time pretending. Hello, PJ _Losers."_

Connor and Greg were still not placated, however. "Why are you two playing _chess?!"_ Connor spluttered.

Romeo folded his arms crossly. "What's wrong with _that?"_

Amaya also looked a bit ticked off. "Well, when you two won't even try to learn to give me someone to play against, I kind of don't have a lot of options." Blinking once, she added in confusion, "What are you doing here, anyway? Did you leave class early?"

"What are you talking about?" Greg asked. "The bell rang five minutes ago."

"It _did?"_ Amaya and Romeo asked in unison, looking up at the clock and seeing that the time did in fact show that it was five minutes past their usual dismissal time.

"Wow," Amaya said, a bit abashed, "I guess we were so focused on our game that we didn't even hear the bell. We'll have to pick up from here on Monday, Romeo."

Romeo snorted at her dismissively. "You've got the whole weekend to wallow in your impending defeat, feathers!"

Amaya simply rolled her eyes at that and stood up out of her seat, turning towards Greg and Connor. "Is something the matter, guys? You still look a little freaked out."

"Yeah, that's why we came looking for you," Connor said. "You know the sign outside of the school, where they show announcements and stuff? It's _gone!"_

"Gone?" Amaya repeated incredulously. "But who would have done that?"

"Hey, don't look at me," Romeo interjected, hopping down from his chair. "I've been here the whole time!"

"We know it wasn't you," sighed Greg. "We saw a bunch of little purple footprints around where the sign used to be. Ninjalino footprints!"

"And you know what that means," Connor added.

Amaya nodded. "Night Ninja!"

"Oh _please,"_ Romeo guffawed, _"that_ second-rate wannabe villain? You guys really _are_ pathetic if you find _him_ threatening!"

"Are you done?" Connor asked Romeo, flatly and unamused.

"Yeah, I think so," Romeo answered matter-of-factly.

"And Night Ninja's going to be done when we get to the bottom of this," Amaya declared confidently, punching out a fist. "PJ Masks, we're on our way!"

"Into the night to save the day!" Connor and Greg joined her, their outstretched fists forming a triumphant triangle.

Dumbfounded, Romeo stared blankly at the gesture, hardly able to blink. "What the heck was _that_ supposed to be? Do you _always_ do that?"

The three friends glared at him.

"Whatever, I don't care," Romeo said with a nonchalant shrug, slinging his backpack over his shoulders. "Have fun being pathetic tonight."

Amaya abruptly lurched forward. _"WAIT!"_

All three of the boys, flabbergasted, stared at her with the same stunned expression.

Amaya zipped back over to the chessboard, and with one swift move snatched up her queen and plunked it down a few spaces away. _"Checkmate!"_

" _What?!"_ Romeo clamored back up to his chair. "You're wrong! I can take your queen with my _pawn!"_ He made a move to do so.

"No you can't!" Amaya countered. "That would put your king in check from my bishop over here!"

Romeo stammered angrily, his eyes darting back and forth across the board, trying desperately to find any move he could make.

Amaya allowed him a few seconds to verify that she indeed had checkmated him before beaming brightly. "I win!" she said cheerfully. "Good game!" She extended a hand towards Romeo.

Fuming, Romeo pushed it aside. _"I'm still not shaking your hand again!"_ He irately climbed back down from the chair, shooting one last sour look to Amaya. "We're playing again Monday, and I'll beat you then. That's a promise!" He darted out of the library and out of sight.

"Yes!" Amaya proclaimed jubilantly. "I did it! I won!" She looked towards Greg and Connor, who still looked a bit confused.

"I have no idea what just happened, but, uh… congratulations, I guess?" Greg offered.

"Thanks," beamed Amaya, gathering her belongings. "Anyway… see you guys at headquarters tonight, then? We've got another villain to beat!"

Greg and Connor both sighed a bit.

"Yeah, if you want to put it that way," Connor said. "But I think the missing sign's a little more important than winning a game of chess—"

"I'm a winner! I _am_ a worthy opponent! Take _that,_ Romeo!" Amaya proclaimed to the empty doorway before spinning around and skipping triumphantly out of it.

Connor and Greg exchanged a wry frown. "I'm beginning to think Amaya being in this science fair isn't such a good thing after all," Greg said.

"Only beginning?" Connor responded wearily.


	5. Chapter 5

Author's Note:

When I first started writing this, Night Ninja wasn't actually part of the story. I'm glad he managed to sneak his way in anyway; he's my second favorite character after Romeo. My only regret is that I couldn't work out a way to have Luna Girl in the story too—she's my third favorite character! (Yes, I have a thing for villains, why do you ask?) The next PJ Masks story I write will have you in it, Luna Girl, I promise!

Ahem… anyway, the real reason I'm popping in with this author's note is to let you all know, and potentially apologize for, the length of these last three chapters. They're all a bit longer than the first four chapters were—nothing approaching doorstopper territory, but they're still all about twice the length of the previous ones. It worked out best to divide the story up this way, and I have posted chapters much longer than these in the past, but if these become a bit less manageable to the readers, then I do apologize for that.

Thanks again to everyone who's been reading and reviewing; it really means a lot to me! I hope you continue to enjoy!

…

Owlette's priorities that night ran incredibly skewed.

When arriving at headquarters, she had surprised Catboy and Gekko by bringing her homemade anemometer with her, reluctant to jump in the cat-car for reasons of needing to take her measurements. "Can't it _wait,_ Owlette?" Catboy had tried to reason with her, and "No, I need to take the measurements at the same time _every night!"_ Owlette had shot back, and "Who's gonna know if you're a few minutes off here or there?" Gekko had pointed out, and "I need this to be _accurate!"_ Owlette had fumed, and finally Catboy and Gekko agreed to let her take her anemometer with her, just to get her to come along with them at al.

And when they arrived at the school and found Night Ninja ordering his ninjalinos to do… something with the now cleared space where the sign used to be, something about replacing it with a big picture of himself, or something… Owlette wasn't really listening, instead floating higher and higher, little by little, holding up her anemometer to get a good measurement.

"Owlette!" Gekko shrieked at her, finally pulling her attention away from her project.

"What are you _doing?"_ Catboy demanded.

Even Night Ninja looked annoyed at her antics. "Would you forget about your silly little weathervane and come back down here to admire _my_ handiwork?" he shouted at her.

The ninjalinos made various offended, grumpy noises.

"Fine, fine, _our_ handiwork," Night Ninja said with a sigh. "What _are_ you doing, anyway? That thing can't _possibly_ be more interesting than me!"

"Give me just one more minute!" Owlette shouted back, not looking back down at the ground, holding her anemometer as steady as she could. "I just need to finish taking this measurement!"

"Owlette, we told you that that needed to wait!" Catboy pleaded with her.

"We can't do this without you!" Gekko cried.

"Urgh! I am not going to be ignored over a plastic jumble of _cups and straws!"_ Night Ninja growled, leaping nimbly up on top of a lamppost. "You can't use it if it's _sticky splatted!"_ He flung his arms back and sent two sticky splats shooting through the air, hitting the anemometer perfectly. The force of one of them was strong enough that the straw holding up the cup bent over a bit.

"No!" shrieked Owlette. "What have you _done?!"_

"Ha! Serves you right!" Night Ninja crowed, his ninjalinos all twittering with laughter below him. "Now forget that contraption and see _my_ marvelous self-portrait that's gonna be the first thing anyone sees when they go to school—and so they'll see how awesome I am!"

As Owlette still despaired over her broken anemometer, Catboy and Gekko turned and looked at the space in the schoolyard where the sign had been… and where nothing else had taken its place yet. "Uh… nothing's there," Gekko remarked, giving Night Ninja an annoyed look.

" _WHAT?!"_ Night Ninja bounded off the lamppost with a leap and landed in front of his ninjalinos. "Ninjalinos! I told you to put it into place ten minutes ago!"

The ninjalinos all jabbered at their boss with mild irritation.

"What do you _mean_ it's not finished yet?!"

"Enough!" Catboy declared, marching up to Night Ninja. "What did you do with the sign that was there before?"

"Like I'm gonna tell you!" Night Ninja snapped back, his hands on his hips. "Besides, once I've put my self-portrait there, no one will ever have need for that silly old sign again!"

"NO!" Owlette screamed, drawing everyone's attention back up towards the sky, where she was still holding her destroyed, sticky-splatted anemometer and shaking with fury. "You destroyed my science project just over some picture that isn't even here yet?! _I needed this to win the science fair!"_

"Owlette, we have more important things to worry about right now…" Gekko implored her.

"Find where he hid the sign while we distract him!" Catboy pleaded.

Night Ninja rolled his eyes. "Okay, first of all, it's been hidden so well you'll _never_ find it, and also, you really need to stop discussing your plans while I'm right in front of you—WHOA! HEY!"

Owlette had thrown the anemometer at the ground, just barely missing Night Ninja. "Owl eyes," she grumbled angrily, her eyes glowing as she took only a second or two to scan the area before sighing in exasperation. "Gekko? It's over there."

Gekko clamored over to where Owlette was pointing.

"No! Stop him, ninjalinos!" Night Ninja ordered.

"Super cat speed!" Catboy cried, darting in and out of the lines of ninjalinos, disorienting them and causing them to clumsily run into each other.

" _Don't let him beat you!"_ Night Ninja screeched. "Do I have to do everything _myself?!"_

He threw his arms back and shot one knee into the air, prepared to run after Gekko, but two things happened at that moment simultaneously.

First, it seemed that a lone ninjalino had in fact been finishing the portrait, and it was precisely then that it bounded into view, triumphantly holding the completed canvas aloft and ready to place it where the sign had been.

Second, Gekko had located the school sign, and with a cry of "Super gecko muscles!" had risen it high in the air as well, running back to the schoolyard and tossing it the last few yards into place, not even noticing the newest ninjalino.

The ninjalino squeaked in terror, abandoned the canvas, and skedaddled out of the way as quickly as it could, just barely avoiding getting crushed. The canvas, however, was not so lucky. A crunching, ripping sound accompanied the substantial thud of the sign landing back in the grass.

"Aw, _come on!"_ Night Ninja cried indignantly.

"Great work, team!" Catboy said jubilantly, Gekko returning his grin. Owlette, however, was still hovering in the air above them, scowling.

"Art destroyers!" Night Ninja shouted at the PJ Masks. "But then again, maybe it's for the better—you probably don't deserve to see my amazing creations if you'd rather have this ugly sign to look at than my beautiful face—"

"We can't even _see_ your face!" Owlette interrupted angrily.

Night Ninja just huffed. "Ingrates. You won't stop me next time! Come, ninjalinos!" He and his minions leaped and flipped their way back into the dark of the night.

"Are you alright, Owlette?" Catboy asked quietly as the noise of the villain team faded away.

"Sorry that Night Ninja wrecked your project," Gekko said sincerely.

Owlette fluttered back down on the ground and forlornly plucked said project from the ground, careful to not touch the sticky splats. "I can't believe he broke it. Now I have to start all over…"

"Look on the bright side," Catboy said helpfully. "That thing's easy enough to rebuild."

"No! You don't get it!" Owlette shouted at him. "I needed all the time with this that I can get! I can't afford to start all over! How am I supposed to win now?! The three older kids don't even care and treat me like a baby, but they don't treat the kindergartener as bad because he's the brother of one of them, and then there's _Romeo—_ he'll probably just come in with a shrink ray or something and win automatically! How can I compete against all of that if I have to completely start over from the very beginning?!"

Catboy and Gekko both looked a bit taken aback and unsure of what to say. Finally, Catboy offered tentatively, "Owlette… it's just a science fair. It's not the end of the world if you don't win."

"You don't understand!" Owlette repeated, shoulders sagging in defeat.

"Will you be alright?" Gekko asked worriedly.

"I don't know," Owlette mumbled.

"We can help you rebuild it if you'd like," Catboy said.

Owlette shook her head, straightening her posture. "No. It's my project, and it's my fault for it getting ruined in the first place. You were right; I should have left it at headquarters until the mission was over. I'll go over there and fix it up before making sure everything's secure, if you guys just want to go home now."

"If you're sure you'll be okay," Catboy said in hesitant agreement.

Owlette nodded. "I will be."

"And if you need any help with anything, just let us know," Gekko said. "You know we'll help with whatever we can."

Owlette finally smiled. "I know. Thanks, guys." Still holding her broken device, she said a bit feebly, "So… PJ Masks, all shout hooray…"

Catboy and Gekko smiled back at her.

"'Cuz in the night, we saved the day!"

…

Owlette usually didn't mind being at HQ by herself. Cleaning the owl-glider and double-checking that everything was locked down and secure as needed were usually tasks she found pleasant enough, ones that were able to hold her focus and let her wind down from an evening of crime fighting. And despite being alone in the large totem, she never felt lonely or scared.

Except now, that is.

Well, scared was probably overstating it, but she definitely did feel an unusual sense of unease as she rummaged through their vault of supplies, trying to find something with which to remove the sticky splats from her science fair project. And lonely wasn't quite the right word either… but she had never been so acutely aware of her solitude before now.

The silence was washing over her like high tide.

Gulping down her discomfort, Owlette pushed aside a box of charging cables, revealing a much larger box behind it. For all of the spare computer parts and electrical mumbo-jumbo lying around, there hadn't seemed to be much in the way of simple household supplies like scotch tape or putty knives. Of course, Owlette reminded herself, they'd never really needed any of that here.

She pulled open the top of the larger box and felt the distress come flooding back.

This box was filled with the various machines and devices that the PJ Masks had confiscated from Romeo. Some big, some small, many that Owlette couldn't even remember what they did, but every last one hammering home her despair from earlier, sinking her to an even deeper low than what she had felt when Night Ninja had destroyed her project.

"I'm not going to win."

The words were out of her mouth before she'd even realized she was pondering them, but the silence that answered her only confirmed the truth on her mind.

Turning her head away, she placed her broken instrument on the ground and pushed it aside.

 _Trying to fix this thing is just a waste of time._

Owlette gulped painfully, fighting back tears and desperately trying to give herself hope. As much as this was dragging her spirits down, she knew that Flossy Flash wouldn't give up so easily. After all, Owlette reminded herself, she was a _superhero._ Stopping villains surely had to be a hundred times harder than winning a school project, right?

…right?

She looked back up at the box of Romeo's inventions, and a sudden thought that she could use one of _those_ for her project shot through her mind like a violent bolt of lightning. Horrified, she turned her head away from the box again, biting her lip. "That's stealing and cheating, and I _know_ that's not what a real superhero would do," she said aloud.

She continued to dig her teeth into her lower lip, to the point of pain, hoping that the pain would blot out the horrible thought still rolling through her mind. It did… a little bit, anyway.

Sighing sadly, she once again looked at the box.

 _I wonder what his project's going to be._

Owlette didn't like the new thought crowding her brain, but it was a much better thought than the temptation to steal, so she still allowed it, her despair and hopelessness nurturing it into a full-blown plan.

Putting the box back where she had found it and placing her broken anemometer atop it, she was already inwardly reasoning with herself. _It's just scouting. I'm just making sure he's not up to no good. And I'm not going to steal any ideas from him. There's nothing wrong with me knowing. In fact, I SHOULD know. As a superhero, it's my duty to make sure he isn't causing trouble._

Her mind made up, she marched solemnly to the side exit of the totem and stepped outside, making sure it was securely shut behind her before taking to the skies. "Owl eyes," she whispered, and the night lit up.

She took a higher altitude, scanning all around the quiet, sleeping town, looking for the telltale shape and size of Romeo's lab. Usually it was easy to spot… but then again, usually when she was trying to find it Romeo was up to no good and making himself rather conspicuous. This night, it was nowhere to be seen.

Moving through the skies, Owlette continued to search, the same rationalizations blaring on repeat through her mind. _I'm just scouting. I'm just scouting. There's nothing wrong with this. I SHOULD be doing this. I'm just scouting. I'm just scouting._

The city streets as deserted as ever, Owlette moved towards the edge of town, the woods nestling up towards it like a sinister blanket. There were very few houses out here, and Owlette felt a pit of unease settle into her stomach, but she still kept at her search, and sure enough, she finally found who she was looking for. She quickly fluttered down and landed on a sturdy branch as quietly as she could to observe him.

Romeo was sitting on the front of his lab, leaning back against the windshield, holding a small tablet and occasionally using his fingers to swipe the screen, an intense, slightly frustrated look in his eyes. Curious, Owlette attempted to lean closer, trying to catch a glimpse of his screen. She nearly lost her balance, however, and clung to the branch as tightly as she could, clenching her teeth and willing herself to stay put and silent.

Thankfully, Romeo didn't seem to notice the rustling of the branch and continued to swipe his tablet screen every few seconds, still looking dissatisfied. Owlette fought down an impatient sigh, wishing he'd turn himself or at least the tablet so she could see what it was he was looking at. Very slowly, she began inching herself forward again, determined to get a better look.

Her focus on Romeo meant that she neglected to notice the branch growing thinner the farther it grew from the tree, however, and one particularly bold creep caused the branch to give way—not snap, but still throw Owlette completely off balance.

"AAHH!" she shrieked, her hands slipping off the branch, and with a tumble, she thudded to the ground, the movement too sudden and quick for her to be able to catch herself midair.

Of course, Romeo noticed this time.

"What?!" he yelped, the tablet falling out of his hands. _"PJ Masks?!_ But I'm not even _doing_ anything!"

"I know!" Owlette cried out quickly, leaping to her feet and holding out her hands in a show of vulnerability. "And it's just me. No one else. Just me."

Still suspicious, Romeo slid off of his lab and glared at Owlette, an overwhelming silence filling the air for a few seconds as Owlette remained still, letting her solitude sink in.

Finally Romeo's posture relaxed by a hair, although he still had a wary eyebrow raised in Owlette's direction. "Alright, Owlette… what do you want?"

"I'm, uh…" Owlette straightened up and crossed her arms across her chest, her eyes growing serious. "I'm scouting."

"Scouting?"

"Yes, scouting." Owlette tried to hide an uncomfortable fidget.

"You're spying," said Romeo disbelievingly.

"I am not!" Owlette responded defensively. "I'm _scouting!"_

"Call it whatever you want, it's still really sneaky of you." Romeo broke into a wry grin, almost approvingly. "I never would have thought you had it in you. I'm impressed."

"It's not sneaky," Owlette protested. "It's smart of me to keep an eye on you and make sure you're not planning anything sinister."

"Can it," Romeo snapped, rolling his eyes and marching right up to Owlette. "You're here to figure out what I'm doing for the science fair, aren't you?"

Owlette glared at him harshly, although she made no feeble attempt to counter him, merely biting her lip in guilty apprehension.

Romeo returned her harsh look. "I thought we agreed that you wouldn't ask about that!"

"Well… I'm not asking," Owlette finally quipped. "I've never once asked. I was just scout… alright, _spying,_ to find out for myself. Besides, we never shook on it!"

"Are you actually exploiting a loophole?" Romeo said in disbelief, the harshness in his eyes gone. "Wow. I'm even _more_ impressed."

"Knock it off," Owlette snapped, feeling attacked. "I don't need approval from a _villain!"_

"Too bad! I approve." Romeo leered at her.

"Never mind," Owlette muttered, turning away in disgust. "Never mind. This was just a waste of time." She extended her wings and lifted herself off the ground.

"No, wait."

Owlette froze in the air, able only to look back and gape at him, not believing what she'd just heard.

Romeo shrugged, almost awkwardly. "As completely unexpected as this is… I could use some input from something I didn't program to always agree with me."

Owlette blinked, trying to take this in. "Why should I?" she finally asked.

"No reason," Romeo admitted truthfully. "Just like there was no reason for you to come here in the first place, but like _that_ stopped you."

Owlette remained static in the air, the truth in Romeo's implicit accusation driving a thousand daggers through her demeanor. Finally, and fully admitting the truth of her excursion, she lowered herself back down to the ground. "Alright," she said heavily.

Romeo looked almost surprised that she had agreed. "Alright?"

"Yeah. Because…" Owlette tensed and glared at Romeo accusingly. "Because after all of this, I have a right to know! You already know too many things about me—my real name, what class I'm in, what my project is, how much I love playing chess, my favorite comic book—and I hardly know _anything_ about you. And I don't expect you to tell me everything about you that you already know about me, but I think I at least should know what your science fair project is. I mean… I'm gonna know in two weeks anyway."

There was another extended silence, Romeo needing a moment to take in _her_ accusation. "Good point," he finally conceded, giving her a light shrug. "That's only fair. But you can't know what _I_ don't know, and the truth is, I still haven't decided on a project."

Owlette blinked. "You haven't?"

"No. Too many brilliant ideas to choose from." Romeo grinned at that, and Owlette lightly rolled her eyes. "But that's why I wanted you to stay. If you want to know so badly, then you can help me decide."

"Alright," Owlette said amiably. "What are your options?"

"I'm so glad you asked! Step inside my lab and be amazed!" Romeo leapt onto the steps to the side of his lab and flung open the door, motioning her to follow him as he clamored inside.

Owlette hesitated only for a moment with the worry that this could be a trap before remembering that _she_ had been the one who had initially approached _him,_ and taking a deep breath, she climbed up into the lab herself.

Like the PJs' headquarters, Romeo's lab was deceptively smaller on the outside, for upon entering Owlette found it to be not exactly roomy but still allowing for a decently sized personal bubble to be kept. There were a couple of different computer screens on the wall, placed below a row of shelving, and Romeo was balanced on the second wrung of a ladder up to those shelves, one hand gripping the ladder and the other, outstretched, holding the tablet. Of course, Owlette was now too curious about the inside of Romeo's lab to even remember her previous wish to see the tablet's screen.

"Yes, yes, it's quite amazing, isn't it?" Romeo bragged. "Built it myself!"

Suddenly, in the far corner of the lab, a magenta light activated and a robotic arm sprang to life. "INTRUDER ALERT," Robot exclaimed, zipping his arm towards Owlette, and with a yelp she darted away, flying too fast and crashing painfully against a higher cabinet. "I WILL CATCH HER—"

" _Robot! Stop it!"_ Romeo snapped, immediately halting Robot.

"Ergh…" Owlette muttered, rubbing her sore arm yet still warily remaining where she was.

"You clumsy bird," Romeo hissed to her, "smashing against my lab like that!" Then, to Robot, he said louder, "Calm down, you bucket of bolts! I invited her in. She's not intruding. Not right now, anyway."

"INVITING YOUR ENEMY INTO THE LAB DOES NOT COMPUTE, MASTER."

Romeo rolled his eyes, although Owlette caught a bit of a blush twinging his cheeks. "It's school stuff! And none of your concern! Go back into sleep mode and finish your recharge. I don't want to have to tell you again!"

"YOUR SAFETY IS OF MY UTMOST CONCERN—"

"I know, Robot," Romeo said, softer and with genuine gratitude, a tonal change that surprised Owlette. "But I've got this. Go back to sleep."

"YES, MASTER."

The menacing light flickered off, and the lab was once again only illuminated by the dark blue of the many computer monitors. "I'm going to have to adjust his wiring," Romeo said, giving Owlette an apologetic shrug. "He's become far too disobedient lately."

"At least it's for a good reason," Owlette said, fluttering down to hover next to him. "He just did it because he was worried about you."

"Yes, bird brain, I know what just happened, I was _there,"_ Romeo muttered sarcastically. "But that's not why we're here. Here, look at this." He held out his tablet towards Owlette. Owlette, remembering that her desire to know what was on that screen was what got her here in the first place, eagerly leaned in.

The screen showed a pixelated blueprint of what looked to be a small, round cleaning robot crowded by a bunch of notes and mathematical formulas that almost looked like a different language to Owlette. "So this is really just a testament to my unbridled genius," Romeo was saying, "because most kids wouldn't even have _one_ perfect idea, but I have _three,_ and I can't figure out which one is the most perfect. This first one is the recycle-bot! Put it in a pile of junk and it'll not only sort the recyclables from the trash, but also sort the recyclables themselves into their separate categories. This one _is_ tempting because making the mess for it to have to sort through _does_ sound like fun, but it also seems sort of… babyish." He swiped the screen to the next blueprint. "This is a synthetic, totally indestructible material of my own invention… I'll probably call it… I don't know, Romeum or something. Definitely the _easiest_ of the projects to make, but it's also pretty boring. Lacks oomph." He swiped the screen again. "And finally—"

"Uh, wait," Owlette interrupted, a bit flummoxed.

Romeo turned from his screen, an annoyed glare highlighted by his tablet screen. "I'm not finished yet!"

"I know, I'm just—confused." Owlette stammered a bit, her issue with what she had seen hardly seeming like something she'd ever take issue with at all, especially regarding _Romeo_ of all people. "This is a super weird thing for me to say, and I wouldn't say it if it were anyone else doing these kinds of science projects because they're completely incredible, but… well, I was expecting something more… _dramatic_ from you, I guess? I mean, you could go bigger than this. I've seen you go bigger than this plenty of times. It seems like you're holding yourself back or something, and I don't get why."

"Ah, silly Owlette," Romeo smirked at her. "I'm not holding myself back, I'm just keeping the venue in mind. Sure, I could come right in with a laser ray or something and freeze the entire school in suspended animation—hmm, not a bad idea for a later world domination scheme," he added thoughtfully, a short, evil laugh escaping his lips despite Owlette's warning glare. "But see, that's why I wouldn't waste such a brilliant, sinister project like that on a _science fair_. My _greatest_ inventions deserve to shine for the _greatest_ purposes—like taking over the world!"

"Well, for our sake and the world's sake, I just wish I could keep you in a perpetual science fair," Owlette said wryly.

"That would end quickly," Romeo declared flippantly, "because it wouldn't take long for everyone to realize that I'm the only true winner and to just stop wasting their time finding me any more 'competition.'" He motioned back towards his tablet screen. "Now, _as I was saying,_ this is my third and final choice. It's—"

"It looks like a chessboard!" Owlette said.

Romeo growled at her. "Would you stop interrupting me already?!"

"What kind of project could look like a chessboard, though?"

Romeo huffed at that, the color returning to his cheeks, much to Owlette's surprise. "Don't let this go to your head, feather face, but our chess match at school gave me an idea. Since I have robots and computers I can play against whenever I want, it's no problem for me to be able to play, but—but for losers like _you_ who don't _have_ my amazing robots, or even any other _people_ to play against, I had the brilliant thought of programming the chessboard _itself_ as the opponent!"

"How does that even work?"

"Funny you should ask," said Romeo with a grin, "because I've actually started building it! Take a look!" He tapped an icon on his tablet screen and a shelf underneath one of the nearby computer screens abruptly flipped open, revealing a chessboard and scattered chess pieces.

Romeo hopped off the ladder and quickly began setting up the board. "In case you haven't figured out the pros and cons of _this_ one for yourself, the pro is that I've obviously already started working on it, but the con is that chess isn't really scientific."

"What you've done to it is," Owlette pointed out.

"What I'm _doing._ It's not quite finished yet. It needs a guinea pig who has a slightly different playing style than me." The board now set up for play, Romeo stepped back and looked at Owlette expectantly.

A few awkward seconds passed.

"Do I need to roll out the red carpet for you, or what?!" Romeo snapped in annoyance.

"Oh," said Owlette, quickly and apologetically. She fluttered down to the board and examined it cautiously. "So… so what do I do?"

"Just play as white. The board's programmed to play as black. Make your first move."

Owlette bit her lip, the chessboard looming before her, bathed in the harsh light from the monitors. Finally, hesitantly, she pushed a pawn forward one space.

Only a second passed before a panel on the side of the board loudly flipped open. A mechanical hand shot out, grabbed a black pawn, and moved it forward two spaces.

Owlette jumped back. "Wow."

Romeo leaned over the chessboard, eagerly taking stock of what he'd just observed. "Good! It didn't push it this time! Make a move so that it can capture your piece and we can see if it's learned to pick it up and not smash into the other piece—really satisfying to do for real, of course, but it sometimes knocks over pieces that it shouldn't."

Owlette, however, withdrew her hand, despair enveloping her once more.

What had she been expecting to find by coming here? That Romeo hadn't even bothered to do _anything_ for the science fair? Or that he had, but they were so laughingly simple that she'd be able to beat him easily? No, of course not—neither one of those options would have ever happened. It didn't matter that he hadn't actually selected one of his choices yet; it didn't matter that none of them were the inventions almost too over-the-top for even a science fiction novel that Owlette had grown accustomed to from him. The relative scaled-back status of all of them was the only thing that had been even halfway surprising tonight. Other than that, her fears were completely validated. There was no way she could even begin to compete with any of this. Romeo was pretty much guaranteed to win.

And all Owlette could do about it was wave a puny little handmade weathervane around.

The silence brought Romeo's attention away from the chessboard and back to Owlette, an order for her to get on with it and make her move already on his lips, but it vanished when he saw just how hopelessly and desolately she regarded the board. The prospect of making a move to sacrifice one piece couldn't be _that_ horrendous, could it? But the more time passed, the more Owlette seemed lost in anguish, Romeo began to wonder if she'd even heard his command.

 _I should capture her._

The thought was so sudden, so unexpected, but as it nestled into his brain Romeo was only surprised that he hadn't thought of it before now. Of course! Owlette was alone, unsuspecting, practically in the palm of his hand—it would be a foolish waste of opportunity if he _didn't._ He could wake Robot up and have her in his robotic claws in an instant. And then Owlette would _always_ be there to talk to him and play chess with him and keep him from growing lonely.

Wait what?

No. No no no. He was going to capture her because she was an annoying do-gooder hero who was always getting in his way and ruining his plans, that's why. Not to keep her around for company. That was just a very nice bonus.

WAIT WHAT?

Romeo clutched the tablet tightly in his left hand, his right hand poised over it, just a flick away from tapping the icon to wake Robot and do the deed, but his nerves couldn't work. _Nothing_ could work, not when his brain was trying to simultaneously reject and embrace the undeniable realization that he wanted her to stay. Forever.

And the sensation of wanting something so intensely wasn't at all unknown to him, but the complete inability to act on it certainly was. In part it was because his mind was still at tug-of-war with itself, screaming in argument whether to capture her because he was a villain and she was a thorn in his side, or because he wanted her around for no nefarious purpose other than greed. But there was another thing holding him back, something that he logically knew made no difference either way and shouldn't have even been registering against everything else exploding in his mind… but the way her mahogany eyes shined in the lights of the monitors was staggering to the point of blotting out all else.

She looked back up at him, those eyes fully locking him in.

"It doesn't really matter, does it?" she said softly. "You could go in and have the board move just the one piece and that would be all you need to win. It doesn't matter which idea you pick. Either way… you were right all along. You're going to win. You're a shoe-in." She took one step back from the board and headed towards the door, her eyes downcast again. Romeo continued to gape at her, unable to do anything else.

Upon reaching the door, she looked back up at him once last time, one hand pressed against the doorframe. "Sorry for bothering you, Romeo. I'll… I'll go home now." She extended her wings and lifted herself into the night sky, and in an instant that lasted an eternity, she was gone.

Romeo was finally able to do something—his grip slacked and his tablet clattered to the floor.

 _Why hadn't he captured her?!_

So what if he had been confused as to WHY he wanted to capture her; at least if he'd have done it he'd have remained only confused! Now he was not only confused, but also angry. Angry at himself for freezing up like that. Angry at her for being there. Angry at himself for inviting her in. Angry at her for beating him at chess earlier that day. Angry at himself for still wanting to play her again despite that. …Angry at himself for desperately wanting to just be with her at all, regardless of pretense.

Suddenly he cried out wordlessly and furiously, violently swiping the chess pieces off the board.

The noise woke Robot, who once again disobeyed orders and roused himself defensively.

"WHAT IS THE TROUBLE, MASTER?"

Romeo spun around and glared at Robot heatedly, helplessly. _"Just leave me alone!"_ he begged, his voice cracking with desperation.

Robot hesitated a moment before powering back down without another word, seeming to grasp the severity of the command.

The silence howling through the lab, Romeo slumped down onto the floor, pressing his hands against his face, the war raging inside him ripping him apart.


	6. Chapter 6

Amaya spent that weekend at her grandparents' house along with her parents and sister, and she hated to think it, but she was glad to be away from Connor and Greg for so long. She was still unable to completely shake off her depression, and being her best friends they'd want to know why and how they could help—and right now, Amaya was in no mood to feel better. They were under the impression that she'd already fixed her anemometer, after all, and she had no good answer as to why that wasn't the case. And, of course, she wasn't _ever_ going to tell them that she'd sought out Romeo. She hated to hide things from them, but she also just hated what she was feeling, and couldn't do that good of a job of faking it.

Her family noticed, of course, and after Amaya admitted to her family the only thing about Friday night that she _could_ —that her anemometer got broken—her sister immediately sprung to action and helped her build a new one, sturdier and with braided pipe cleaners for support rather than plastic straws. And that was nice of her, and Amaya did feel a little better about that. She just didn't know if she was feeling good enough for her friends to not notice there was anything still wrong about her.

Monday morning, she met Greg and Connor outside of their houses to walk to school together, doing her best to appear adequately cheerful. "Hey, guys!"

"Hey, Amaya!" Greg greeted her.

"How was your weekend at your grandparents' house?" Connor asked her.

"It was great!" The three friends began their short jaunt to school, Amaya happy to have a safe topic of conversation. As long as they could avoid the word 'science' she'd be good. "They took us to the zoo on Saturday and there were some new birds in the aviary. The condor was amazing! I've never seen a bird that big!"

"I bet Owlette's bigger," said Greg with a grin.

"I don't know," laughed Amaya. "Seriously, it was gigantic! The zookeepers said it has the largest wingspan of any bird in the world!"

"It still probably couldn't create as good of an owl wing wind as you, though!" Greg said.

"Speaking of wind," Connor said, "were you able to get your measurements for your science fair project at your grandparents' house?"

"Yeah," Greg added. "We know how important that is to you."

Amaya sighed, her face falling in an instant. Man, _that_ hadn't lasted long. "Actually… I'm kind of feeling down about the whole thing. I might ask the principal today if I can quit."

"Quit?!" Greg and Connor cried, utterly shocked.

"Yeah," Amaya quickly explained, "I don't think it's such a good idea for me anymore. I was letting it completely take over everything else. Night Ninja nearly won the other night because my priorities were so skewed."

"But you realized that you were letting it get too out of control," Connor reminded her. "You don't have to pull back _this_ much."

Amaya sighed again. "It's not fun anymore, though. I'm not even looking forward to this afternoon. I'm gonna go in the library and Romeo will just laugh at me, the older kids will completely ignore me, and—and having to put up with all of that just to be able to be in this science fair isn't worth it anymore." Her brows burrowed in determination. "I'm going to quit. Today will be my last day."

"But Amaya," Greg said to her, surprised, "you've worked so hard for this! You can't quit now!"

"If it's the other kids that are making you feel that way," Connor said encouragingly, "there are things you can do about it without just quitting. Ask the older kids what you can do to help with the project. They might not ignore you if you really show them that you want to participate." He paused for a moment, then shrugged apologetically. "I have no clue what you can do about Romeo, though…"

"Hmm." Amaya stroked her chin. "I guess I could still try that. I did give them information about my project, after all, and they should have included it in their report—I can at least ask to go in and embellish my own section."

"I don't see why they wouldn't let you," Greg said with a smile. They had reached the school and were climbing up the steps to the main entrance. "It's _everyone's_ report, not just theirs."

"Right." Amaya finally smiled again. "I'll do that this afternoon. Thanks, guys."

"No problem," smiled Connor. "We'd hate to see you quit now."

Amaya continued to smile as confidence finally began to flow through her again. Trying to hide her unhappiness from Greg and Connor now just seemed really foolish, but she was perfectly happy to prove her gloomy thought process from earlier wrong. Their pep talk not only cheered her up, but it had also made perfect sense, and, as she made her way into her classroom, she was already feeling her dread for the afternoon slipping away.

…

"Um… excuse me?"

Amaya winced at Emily's condescending tone. "I said… can I help you guys with anything on the group report?"

Emily, who was sitting in front of one of the library laptops, continued to glower at Amaya in a very unamused fashion. "We've already got it written. As much as we could, anyway."

"That's great!" Amaya said, a bit too eagerly. "I can look over my section and tweak it, then."

"Why?" Emily asked.

Amaya was taken aback by the blunt question. "Because—because my project's part of this, and I have some additional data I can add to it. All I gave you were a few notes on it, but I have more details to add now."

"That would mess up the flow of what's already written, though," Emily said, not really trying to hold back her disdain. "We don't want to have to rewrite our own parts just so you can add more to yours."

"But—but you wouldn't have to," Amaya stammered. "All I'm asking is to add a sentence or two to my own section." She could feel her brow knitting in anger as Emily continued to regard her with the same contempt as if Amaya was a cockroach. "Why is that such a bad thing to ask? Isn't this report supposed to be a group effort?"

" _Group effort?!"_ Emily repeated incredulously. "That's rich coming from the girl who refused to do what the group asked; gave me the scantiest, most basic notes as if that would help; and then has spent the entire rest of the time up until now not even _trying_ to talk with us, instead just playing chess with that weird kid who I'm halfway convinced is plotting to take over the world or something. And _now_ you're going to waltz over here and try to tell me _I_ don't understand a group effort? Please." She rolled her eyes at her dismissively before turning back to the laptop, effectively ending the conversation.

Amaya's limbs slacked as she stood frozen to the spot, the verbal accusation driving a wedge through her heart.

It was over now. It was _really_ over.

She should have known all along that quitting was the only option.

Red-hot despair constricted her throat, and her eyes began to tremble.

 _No, no, don't cry! Not at school! Not here!_

But as Amaya turned and heavily walked away from Emily, trying to hold her head high, she could already feel a tear trickle down her cheek. She somehow made her way to the reading corner and sank down into a beanbag chair, taking off her glasses and pressing her face into her palms. Tears wetted them in an instant.

How was she going to quit? It wasn't a matter of if anymore… it was _how._

Should she go up to the principal and tell her that she didn't want to participate anymore? Should she simply stop leaving class early for this? Should she stick it out until the science fair next Friday and when it came to be her time to present, just blow a big raspberry and leave the stage? She didn't want to talk to the principal and explain she was quitting, and she _definitely_ didn't want to tell her teacher, or Connor and Greg. But she didn't want to spend a minute more in this library, either.

Well… to be fair, at that moment, she didn't want to do anything but sit where she was and wallow in self-pity.

Sniffling, she rubbed at her eyes but didn't lift them from her palms.

This was the worst day ever.

"What are you _doing?"_

And it just got worse.

Amaya lifted her tear-stained face and glared at Romeo, who to be fair looked more surprised than antagonistic. "Go away!" she whimpered.

Romeo didn't acquiesce her demand, instead continuing to stare at her in honest astonishment.

"I said go away," Amaya said weakly, sniffling again and wiping her eyes.

"…What could you _possibly_ have to cry over?" Romeo finally asked.

The question surprised Amaya, but more than that it irritated her. "The fact that I'm constantly being talked down to and left out of the loop by the older kids, and that's not even getting into the insults _you_ hurl my way, and my project is simple and horrible and _stupid_ and I'm not going to win, and—and I just don't wanna do this anymore! I'm _quitting!"_

" _What?"_ Romeo actually looked angry at that. "You can't quit!"

"Why do you care?" Amaya mumbled harshly. "I thought you _wanted_ to beat me!"

"Duh I want to beat you, but it doesn't count if you just keel over and give up not even halfway to the finish line!" Romeo snapped back at her, outraged. "Any moron could beat a quitter! I need to prove I'm _better_ than you! How can I do that if you just _give up?!"_

"You've _already_ beaten me! You and I both know it! So—so just take your win and your bragging rights and leave me alone, okay?"

"Really?! That's how it's gonna be?!" Romeo got down right in her face, causing Amaya to recoil into the beanbag chair a bit. "You don't make _any sense!_ You never back down against me in the nighttime even though I'm coming at you with robots and inventions that can stop you or capture you or take away your powers—you don't even ever break a _sweat!_ But some silly science fair is what breaks you down? That's _pathetic,_ Owlette!"

"Don't call me that in school!" Amaya hissed at him. "Because don't you get it? _That's_ the difference! I'm _not_ Owlette for this science fair! I'm just Amaya! Plain, ordinary Amaya, no superpowers, not even really all that smart, I'm just a _nobody!_ You're basically the same person day and night, but I'm _not!_ You could do everything you do in the nighttime when it's daytime if you wanted to, but I'd be powerless to stop you! In the daytime, I'm a _nobody!"_

" _Excuse me!"_ Romeo shouted back irately. "There is no way I'd lose a game of chess to a _nobody!"_

"You don't understand," Amaya shot back. "Because you're always too wrapped up in yourself to see the writing on the wall. Unlike you, I can tell when I'm beat! I can tell when it's time to retreat!"

"You are _not_ retreating, you stupid bird! You're curling up in a little ball and sticking your fingers in your ears! And no, I _haven't_ beaten you yet! You're just so pathetic that you can't stand the thought of losing even once, so you're bailing before it gets to that point! You think I just sit in a corner and whine and wail every time you PJ pests defeat me? You think I throw in the towel the second things get hard?! _No!_ I pick myself back up and plan for the next time! So there's another thing I do better than you—I _deal_ better than you! I _cope_ better than you! And I've dealt with way more than _you_ ever have! You're _pathetic,_ bird brain! _Pathetic!"_ Disgusted with her, he spun around and walked away.

Amaya, devastated, simply pressed her face into her palms again, no longer caring if anyone saw her cry.

She at least needn't have worried about Romeo being a continued audience to her tears, as his course was definitely set and nothing was going to direct his attentions elsewhere. He marched right up to where Emily was still at her laptop and slammed a hand down on the table, getting her attention.

"Aah! _What?!"_

"Let me see that group report!" Romeo demanded.

Emily groaned. "You too? Listen, we already finished. Don't worry about it."

"Of course I'm going to worry about it!" Romeo shot back, annoyed. "As the future winner of this science fair I think I have the right to read it over and make sure it's up to my standards! And besides, even if I _don't_ win, it's still _my_ report as much as it is everyone else's!"

Emily sighed with tired derision. "Look, I told this to Maya, and—"

" _Amaya,"_ Romeo corrected her crossly, without thinking.

" _Amaya—"_ Emily made a show of rolling her eyes— "and I'll tell it to you, too. You both had your chance to participate in this before, and you blew it. It's too late to decide to be team players now."

"Nice try, but you can't just decide to enforce a time limit now to be able to continue to ignore us." Romeo put his hands on his hips grumpily. "You never wanted to include us in the _first place!_ At least not as equal team members! When you found out that we weren't going to fall in line like little sheep you hung us out to dry! Which is _infuriating,_ by the way!" He was now right in Emily's face just like he had been in Amaya's a few minutes previously, and Emily finally was starting to look less scornful and more surprised, instinctively recoiling from him. "I might be younger than you, but that doesn't mean I'm not chock full of brilliant science ideas that I can choose from _myself,_ and although Amaya might be a total bird brain, she's perfectly capable of coming up with a project without your help, too! There's a _reason_ we were chosen as the representatives from our classes! Heck, I bet even your little brother could come up with an idea on his own if you'd let him!" He paused for a much-needed breath, giving Emily a bit of reprieve, but just as she started to straighten back up Romeo angrily glowered down in her face again. "The whole point of a team project is that we _all_ work together as a _team, not_ that the older kids just delegate assignments to the younger ones and expect instant compliance! I mean, come on, I'm a _horrible_ team player and even _I_ knew that!"

Emily stared dumbly, her eyes wide in shock.

"Now," Romeo continued forcefully, "here's what we're going to do. _All six of us_ are going to spend this afternoon going through your precious little report and fixing it so that it's the work of _all of us!"_

"Alright, fine…" Emily still looked a bit dumbfounded. "Just calm down… If you go get Amaya, I'll gather up everyone else."

Romeo groaned. This was the desired result, to be sure, but he really didn't want to approach Amaya again in her current state. "Ugh, _fine,"_ he mumbled, heading back towards the reading corner.

Amaya was still huddled up in a little ball on the beanbag chair, not looking ahead—she probably hadn't seen or heard any of what had just happened. She still looked small and devastated and absolutely pitiable.

And it was giving Romeo a really painful knot in his stomach to see her like that.

Gritting his teeth, he marched up to her, overcome with anger at her for compelling him to do this for her. It was _embarrassing_ to have to _help_ one of those pesky PJ Masks to get himself feeling back to normal.

She still hadn't taken notice of anything when Romeo reached her, still too deep in her melancholy. Romeo gulped hard and rolled his eyes at her simultaneously. "Come on!" he barked out.

Amaya looked up, fresh tears lining her cheeks. "What?"

Romeo gulped again as the knots in his stomach tightened. "Come on!" he snapped again. "We're all going to work on that group report now."

Amaya rubbed at her eyes and slowly put her glasses back on. "…what?"

Romeo threw up his hands in annoyance. _"Would you stop saying that?!_ Just _come on!"_ Before he could stop himself, he grabbed her by the hand and pulled her out of the chair and vehemently led her back to the laptop, where the other kids were gathering as well.

"Okay, they're here," Brody said to Emily.

"What did you want to talk about with all of us?" Isaac asked her.

"Right." Emily stood in front of the laptop, fidgeting a bit, her brother Adrian standing close to her side and looking up at her expectantly. "Listen, uh, Amaya…" Emily looked her directly in the eye, and Amaya flinched, knowing how visible the tears still had to be on her face. "I'm sorry for brushing you off like that. I wasn't really thinking. Taking a quick look at the report is probably a good idea for all of us, since, you know, it's been a week now. We probably all have something to add."

Amaya blinked, unable to say anything. Was… was this some sort of joke they were all playing on her? Her eyes flickered to Romeo, who had let go of her hand but remained at her side, glaring at Emily. This _had_ to be a joke, as she couldn't imagine why Romeo would apparently stand up for her like this. But if it _was_ a joke, why wasn't anyone laughing yet?

"I'm kind of curious about your projects, actually," Isaac said. "Everyone's projects. We've all been kind of little solitary islands this whole time when we were supposed to be bouncing ideas off of each other."

"So, progress report time?" Brody asked. "I'm down with that."

"Ooh! Me first!" Adrian said, jumping up and down.

"Alright, alright," Emily said, finally smiling in her brother's direction. "We can go youngest to oldest."

"Of course," muttered Isaac.

"Just give me a second to pull up the document here…" Emily sat down and made a few clicks on the laptop. "There we go. I already know how yours is going along, Adrian, but why don't you let the rest of our teammates know how you're doing?"

"It's going great!" Adrian exclaimed excitedly. "The volcano's all built. I just have to paint it and then I can start testing making it erupt!"

Amaya cracked a small smile at his enthusiasm, although she still felt a bit uneasy, not able to comprehend this complete change in behavior she was witnessing. Any minute now Romeo was going to start cracking up at her for being stupid enough to fall for this… right?

"You could compare the different test results if you want," Brody suggested. "Like, see how it does with different amounts of vinegar versus baking soda and chart that."

"Great idea!" said Emily. "I'll make a note here to add that…" After quickly typing something, she looked back up at Amaya. "So how's your project going, Amaya?"

Amaya blinked. Apparently this actually _was_ legit. Or legit enough to make Emily open the report again, which was a victory as far as Amaya was concerned. "Well… I had a bit of a setback this weekend. My anemometer broke. I wasn't able to fix it, but my sister did help me build a new one, so I can start up again tonight and start collecting new data on wind speeds at various altitudes."

"Is the new one made out of the same material as the old one?" Isaac mused.

"No… my sister used sturdier materials," said Amaya.

"That's another variable you could track, if you wanted to," said Isaac. "I know the wind's pretty variable as it is, but you could look to see if there's any noticeable differences in readings between the two."

Amaya blinked again, her uncertainty fading away with a more genuine smile. "That's a good idea. I hadn't thought of that."

"Don't get bogged down with _too_ many variables," Romeo piped up calmly. "You'll lose your focus."

Amaya raised an eyebrow at him quizzically, still completely baffled to his reasoning for… for whatever it was he'd just done. "That's about all I have to report right now on my project," she said, "so if we're going by age, then you're next, Romeo. What are _you_ working on?"

"Yeah, at least Amaya gave me a few notes on hers last week," said Emily. "I haven't gotten _anything_ from you yet."

"When you're a genius like me, sometimes the hardest step of a project is picking the most brilliant one," said Romeo with a sly smirk. "But I've made my decision. I've decided I'd like to have a little fun and push the mental stimulation to the fullest. I'm going with a chessboard that I've programed to play on its own. Essentially it's a chess-playing AI or robot, but I'm going to program it into the board itself, so no screen or monitor is necessary."

"So all that chess playing you've been doing was actually working on the project?" Brody asked as Emily quickly typed more notes in the document.

"Hmm… indirectly, I suppose," mused Romeo. "It _did_ give me the idea, at least."

"Hold up," said Isaac, a hint of disbelief twinging his words. "Are you actually talking about… like, _robotics?_ Not only building something like that, but programming it too?"

"Of course I am," replied Romeo, a bit offended. "What's the problem with that?"

"Can you actually _do_ something like that?"

Romeo just smirked at him. "I guess you'll just have to see for yourself next Friday, huh?"

Emily peered over the laptop screen with a questioning look, but to Amaya's surprise it was aimed in her direction, not Romeo's. In response, she gave her a mild shrug and said, "Believe him, he can do something like that."

"You have _no_ flair for the dramatic," Romeo muttered to Amaya.

Amaya raised an eyebrow at him again, hoping for at least _something_ of an explanation, but Emily was finishing her notes and starting to speak about her project now, and Romeo only gave Amaya a kind of weird eye-roll in return before turning his attention back to Emily. Amaya sighed, tucking the desire to understand away for now. Now that she was finally being included, she could wait to split hairs later.

…

It had been a surprisingly productive afternoon in the school library. After sharing their progress on their projects, all six students had gathered around the laptop and worked on the report together, each one taking his or her turn to lean over and make their own additions. The resulting document was now flowing between six distinct voices, but it gave the report life and individuality in contrast to the previous concise, yet dry, version.

As the bell rang and Amaya moved back to the corner where she had dropped her belongings earlier, she passed by the principal, who had been in the library every day so far but only as an observer, and caught a smile on her lips.

Hoisting her backpack off of the floor, though, Amaya felt her own smile morph into confusion.

Had… had that _really_ just happened?

It hadn't even been that long ago that very day that she was curled up in the beanbag chair a foot away from her, sobbing and feeling helpless over this whole ordeal. The fact that everything had turned around so spectacularly was astounding enough, but the apparent instigator of said turn-around was even more impossible to believe.

Amaya bit her lip as she slung her backpack over her shoulders and turned to the door. Given every other unbelievable thing that had just happened, she found she wasn't surprised at all to see that Romeo was apparently waiting for her.

"How did your anemometer break?" he asked her.

Amaya made a cursory glance to make sure no one was listening before realizing that unless one knew what she was talking about, it would just sound like a code or gibberish anyway. "Night Ninja sticky splatted it," she said, the two of them walking out of the library and towards the school doors together, comfortably, almost as if they were old friends.

"Really?" Romeo raised an eyebrow. "Good for him, I guess. Maybe he's not a total joke after all."

On a normal day Amaya would have been annoyed by that (usual) kind of response from him, but today was not a normal day. "Romeo… I'm still not sure what exactly you did back there, or _why_ you did it, but… thank you," she finished softly.

Romeo huffed and rolled his eyes. "Don't get mushy on me. When I win I'm going to have to take that group report with me to regionals, and so it'll need to be _perfect,_ with all _six_ projects described in detail. This was a solid start today, but it'll still need some _major_ tweaking to be worthy of being associated with _me._ Don't think I did that just for _you._ I did it for _me!"_

Amaya sighed, a bit disappointed, although she wasn't quite sure why; that explanation should have been expected, after all. "Well, no matter what your reasoning was, it still means a lot to me that you did that."

Romeo huffed again, his cheeks turning red. "Would you just drop it already, bird brain? It had nothing to do with _you,_ other than the fact that I have to do this with you at all!"

"I know that," Amaya countered, pushing open the main doors, "but you being able to pull us all together at all is still really impressive."

"Well, _duh._ I'm _super_ impressive. Nice of you to finally notice." Upon stepping outside, and seeing Greg and Connor sitting on the steps waiting for Amaya, he scowled a bit. Greg and Connor tensed a degree or two and also gave slight grimaces at seeing him with Amaya.

"Okay, whatever you say," Amaya said, forcing a light laugh. "See you tomorrow, Romeo."

"I can't wait until this whole stupid thing is over," Romeo snarled forcefully, making a show of stomping past Connor and Greg down the stairs and to the sidewalk, turning huffily and disappearing from view behind the fence.

"Sooo…" Greg said, hesitantly, "how did everything go today?"

"It was…" Amaya blinked, the days' events still a bit strange to try to take in. "It went really well, actually. It's the weirdest thing. I was so sure I was going to quit, especially after what both Emily and Romeo said to me, but then we were all suddenly… working together. And I was being listened to. I was… _included."_ She shook her head, still not sure what to make of the afternoon. "I honestly have no clue what happened, but… but I think I'm going to be alright now."

"That's great!" Connor said, smiling at her. "I'm glad you're feeling better about this whole thing."

"And that you're still going to participate," Greg added eagerly. "It would have been horrible if you'd quit now."

"Don't worry, I don't plan on quitting anytime soon," Amaya laughed. "But I'm going to need to start gathering new data tonight if I want a project to present in the first place. Anything we need to do tonight?"

Connor shook his head. "Not that we know of. We'll let you know if something comes up."

"I hope nothing does," said Amaya, grinning, "because I've got to take my measurements with my new anemometer!"

"That's the spirit!" Greg cheered.

"We don't know what happened either," said Connor, placing a hand on her shoulder, "but whatever it was, we're glad that it's made you excited for the science fair again!"

"Me too, Connor," said Amaya, an authentic smile back on her face. "Me too."

…

On Tuesday afternoon, the science fair students started work on their poster boards for their presentations, Isaac thoughtfully bringing in one for each participant. All six children happily got to work, chatting with each other and helping each other out as needed. Amaya was strangely satisfied to see that even Romeo seemed to be getting into it. Wednesday was spent much the same way, and with all of the sudden focus and teamwork, the students had mostly completed their poster boards, at least as much as they could until they had all of their data available. Thursday, then, as Amaya entered the library, she wasn't sure what exactly they would spend their time on that day. She had arrived before most of the other kids, seeing only Romeo back at the chessboard, biting his lip in concentration as he surveyed the board. Amaya hesitated for only a moment before approaching him.

"More field research for your chess AI?" she asked him.

Romeo glanced up at her, smiling with confidence. "Just straightening out a few final loose ends, feathers! I've nearly perfected the programming. It's going to beat your insignificant little project so hard, you won't even know what hit you."

"Yeah, I know," Amaya said lightly. "I got that the last hundred times you've said it." She glanced down at the board before picking up both kings and holding them out to Romeo. "So… rematch?"

Romeo's surprise only lasted a second before his confident grin returned. "I'm white this time," he said, snatching the white king from her hands.

"Works for me," shrugged Amaya, placing the black king back on the board and sitting herself down on its side.

As Romeo also placed his king in the correct position and began contemplating his opening move, Amaya felt that sense of confusion she had tucked away a few days ago begin to bubble up again. There was no large group unity to overshadow it at the moment, not like it had been for the past few days.

What _were_ they now, anyway?

Were they actually… _friends?_

Amaya mentally pushed that notion aside. No, that was impossible. It went against every notion of goodness, and heroism, and friendship, and _decency_ to consider such a fiendish villain like Romeo as a _friend._ And yet, despite knowing all that, she couldn't help but consider how weirdly sociable their interactions had been lately. Certainly not perfect by any means—Romeo still continued to snark at her at every turn, and Amaya was returning that snark more often than not now—but she had to acknowledge that anyone who had only seen their interactions at school from the past week and a half would have assumed they were… _friends._

But they weren't.

…were they?

They were still enemies, right?

Were they some weird mix of _both?_ Like… frenemies, or something?

Amaya sighed, not having a good answer. She was looking forward to when this whole science fair was over and they could get back to being just enemies again.

Although that meant that she'd lose her chess partner…

Romeo looked up at her when he heard her sigh, raising an eyebrow. "You're not going to go all depressed on me again, are you?" he accused her, moving a knight forward almost as an afterthought.

"No," Amaya said, quickly shaking her head. "It's just… this is weird, isn't it?"

" _What's_ weird?"

"You know… _us."_ Amaya shrugged awkwardly.

"What's weird about us?" Romeo demanded. "Besides, you know, the obvious…"

"Well… we are still enemies, right?"

"Of course we are," Romeo said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "I _did_ tell you that once this science fair is over, I'd go back to my usual world conquering schemes, didn't I?"

"Yes—"

"And you and the other PJ morons will try to stop me when I do that, right?"

"Of course we will!" Amaya declared, almost defensively.

"Well, there you go," Romeo said matter-of-factly.

Amaya sighed again, the answer not completely satisfying her. "But that's at least a week from now. What are we _now?"_

Romeo's face flushed a bit at that, although it didn't seem to be from anger. His reply was still dripping with annoyance, however. "We're chess partners now. Now hurry up and make your move already!"

Amaya exhaled again with slight disappointment, moving a pawn forward, realizing that maybe some questions weren't always going to have satisfactory answers.

…

The next week passed more or less uneventfully, at least considering the unusual circumstances.

The PJ Masks weren't kept completely idle. Luna Girl kept them busy one night, and a few nights later Night Ninja had caused another ruckus. Still, though, Amaya was able to continue to collect data for her project (and had learned her lesson against bringing her anemometer with her on missions). By the day before the science fair, her poster board was complete with data plotted and a brief analysis that she could expand upon during her presentation.

With the only work left to do that week was to continue to take and record measurements, Amaya's time in the library every afternoon was freed up again, so she and Romeo happily continued their chess game, Romeo claiming he needed the research to continue fine-tuning his self-playing board. Amaya suspected, however, that he merely was just like her in wanting someone to play against. Someone good.

Because they were both good. This time they were both much more thoughtful with their moves, no (well, few) rash plays being made this time. Competitive barbs were still exchanged, but this time it was as if both children were making sure to take their time, knowing that their period of being able to interact like this was nearly up. When Amaya made a careless move on Thursday that stalemated the game, they both just stared at the board in silence for a few moments, neither one of them wanting to acknowledge the finality of the situation.

Finally, Amaya said apologetically, "You can count that as a win against me. It was my mistake."

"Stalemates don't count as _wins,"_ Romeo muttered angrily.

"I know. I'm sorry." Amaya stood up awkwardly. "But it was probably for the best that that game ended today anyway. This time tomorrow, we'll be presenting our projects to the rest of the school…"

"I know that, bird brain!" Romeo snarled at her. "You don't have to provide exposition to me!"

His tone was unusually harsh, and Amaya flinched at it. "I said I was sorry. Maybe sometime later we can get together and play again—"

"Forget it. You and I both know that's not going to happen." Romeo grabbed his backpack and looked back at Amaya, his eyes looking not only angry, but also almost dejected, much to Amaya's shock. "We can go back to being just enemies now, just like you wanted." And even though the final bell hadn't rung yet, he stormed his way out of the library, leaving Amaya no time to respond to him.

The silence and solitude she was left with almost hurt.

 _Was_ that what she wanted? Part of her said yes, but she still was unable to feel very happy about the thought. Her desire for things to go back to normal didn't cheer her up, but at least it made her _comfortable._ She was tired of questioning things. She didn't like not getting answers.

She didn't like that after these past few weeks, she'd never be able to avoid questioning things again.

Sighing helplessly, she methodically began moving the pieces back to their opening positions.

It didn't really matter what she was tired of, or what she wanted, or anything. Things were going to go back to normal after tomorrow regardless of how she felt about it, so she'd better finally learn to cope with the things she couldn't change.


	7. Chapter 7

Author's Note:

Here we are at the last chapter already! Thanks to everyone who's stuck with this fic. I hope you've enjoyed reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it!

I hope to write more PJ Masks fic soon. What I'm really hankering to write now is a origin fic for our three heroes and three villains, although in all honesty part of me is also very reluctant to take that up when the show's still ongoing (and apparently will be gaining new characters, which will definitely muddy the waters for my planned story). Plus, I know I'm not the first to write something like that, and wouldn't want to tread too closely to where other authors have gone before me. But still... eh, maybe I'll get over my misgivings and just write the darn thing anyway, lol. Make it my own 'verse. And even then, if all that fails, I do have some other little ideas for more Romeo/Amaya as well, haha. :D

Thank you again for reading and to everyone who's left me feedback, it means a lot to me! Here's the final chapter; I hope you enjoy it!

…

Friday, the day of the science fair, arrived cold and rainy, and despite having done everything she could think of to prepare for her presentation, Amaya still wasn't sure if she was ready for this.

Her parents were so proud and excited. They'd fixed her a special breakfast of strawberry crepes and insisted she wear a dress for her special occasion—not her usual dress-like jumper, but an actual _dress._ They were going to be there at the presentation that afternoon. Along with the whole school.

Flying her owl-glider and fighting baddies at night? That was nothing. But this? Amaya felt as if she'd swallowed all of Luna Girl's moths.

"Alright, students!" said the principal, briskly and eagerly. She'd lined the six children up in order by age just outside of the exhibition hall, the sounds of the rest of the student body seated inside and awaiting the fair easily leaking through the walls. "We'll be starting in a few minutes. Are you excited?"

"Yeah!" crowed Adrian. Romeo just smiled smugly. The rest of the students simply cracked a nervous grin. Amaya almost felt better seeing that the older kids looked to be just as uneasy as she was. She wasn't the only one who was a bundle of nerves today.

"You'll all do great," said the principal with a warm smile. "You have all shown such amazing progress and fortitude over these last three weeks. I'm so proud of all of you. When you're up on stage presenting your project, just take a deep breath and remember that you're all already winners. Each and every one of you has already shown what an asset you are to our school. You've already completed your projects and done great work on them—that was the hard part, and you're already past it! You'll all do fine." She smiled at them again before ducking back out to the stage.

"I can't believe I get to go out on that stage all by myself!" Adrian said to Amaya, beaming with pride. He was decked out in a dress shirt and bow tie, and Amaya felt herself genuinely grin at him; her parents didn't seem to be the only ones to have their participating children dress for the occasion.

"I've never been on that stage alone either," Amaya told him. "I've done solo presentations in front of my class before, but that's just been in the classroom. It's going to be so different out on the stage…"

"Of course," Romeo cut in from Amaya's other side. He too had dressed up for the event, but Romeo being Romeo, his attire was the getup Amaya was most accustomed too—the villainous one. The only difference between now and his usual nighttime look was that his goggles weren't over his eyes, instead resting at his hairline. "Neither of you have ever lost to _me_ before. Hope you're prepared." He smirked in self-assurance, and Amaya rolled her eyes at him out of habit.

"That's no problem, Romeo," Adrian said cheerfully. "I don't want to win. I don't want to go on to regionals. I just want to do this here."

"…oh." Romeo scoffed at him. "Well, _you're_ no fun."

"Shh, you guys, the principal's starting!" Emily whispered to them. "Adrian, you're up first—is your volcano and poster board ready?"

"It's over there," Adrian said, pointing down the backstage wings a bit where the children's projects were all lined up.

"Let me help you get those so you're ready as soon as she announces you!" Emily said, motioning for her brother to follow her.

As they scampered off, Amaya took a few deep breaths, trying to settle her nerves. It was just like the principal said—the hard part was already over. After coming this far, this last step had to be simple in comparison, right?

"Sooo, Amaya…" Romeo leaned closer to her, mockingly. "Do _you_ want to win?"

Amaya flinched, the inclination to lie to him very strong. But the truth was strong enough that there was no way she could keep up the charade of pretending otherwise. "…yes," she admitted in a soft voice.

"Good. I knew you were ambitious," said Romeo. Amaya, surprised by that reply, bit her lip in response.

The principal announced Adrian's name, the audience applauded, and Adrian proudly marched onstage holding his volcano and chemicals, Emily following behind with his poster board. After setting it up for him she quickly retreated backstage, but stood close by in the wings to watch him, Brody and Isaac joining her.

"But," Romeo continued to Amaya, "considering how many times you've won against me before, I'm pretty sure today's _my_ turn, right?"

Amaya gulped, her stomach doing flips. _I'm up next. I'm right after Adrian. It's almost my turn._ And, of course, Romeo's taunting wasn't helping ease her nervousness at all. "If you do win," she finally said, keeping her gaze straight in front of her and holding her chin up high, "then you'll have won fairly, and that's perfectly alright. I'll be fine with that."

"Aw, come on," Romeo huffed. "I'm really fair about trying to take over the world. I give you guys plenty of clues, I don't take any cheap shots at you when I'm retreating—and you know I could!—I'm always keeping your minds sharp with my brilliant—"

"There's nothing fair about trying to take over the world!" Amaya hissed at him, spinning her head to glare at him before she could stop herself. The eye contact seemed to knock Romeo down a peg or two, and he gulped slightly.

Amaya sighed. Was _this_ the normality she had been so desperate to return to? She abruptly felt a wave of nostalgia for the past few weeks sweep through her. This wasn't like it had been during preparing for this science fair, and it _definitely_ wasn't like it had been before that… and it never would be again, she realized. Whatever this was with Romeo _was_ her new normal. "You… you don't _have_ to be a villain, you know," she blurted out.

"That's preposterous," Romeo retorted. "Of _course_ I have to be a villain. What kind of superhero would you be without a super _villain?_ And those other two losers don't count," he added quickly.

"That—that doesn't matter. The world would be better off without villains."

"The world, maybe—but what about _you?_ You wouldn't get to be a superhero at all without villains like me."

Amaya drew in her breath, unable to argue that point. "I… I would hate to give that up. I do love to fly. It's exhilarating!" She clasped her hands in front of her, wishing she were Owlette right at that very moment so that she could fly through the backstage wings, Romeo giving her kind of a strange, half smile in return. "And—and being able to see without these." She removed her glasses, and nearly everything around her became a blur. Only Romeo didn't, by virtue of his standing right next to her, and even then he didn't appear as sharp. "When I'm Owlette, I can see nearly perfectly. Even without using my owl eyes power. I don't need these at all. Then I get back home and change back and everything… everything goes blurry again, and I hate that."

"Come on, your eyes can't be _that_ bad." Romeo took her glasses from her hand and slipped them on, jumping back and letting out a loud "WHOA!" from shock. "Okay, never mind, you're blind as a _bat!_ I don't even think _my_ eyes were this bad! My lenses were thick, but not like _this!"_

"You had to wear glasses too?"

"Yeah. Not anymore, though. I performed corrective Lasik surgery on myself last year." Romeo grinned at Amaya, looking a bit silly in her glasses.

Amaya, despite herself, giggled at him. "Give those back," she said playfully, reaching out with both hands to pull them off of his face, her thumbs grazing his cheeks as she did so.

The motion made Romeo turn red as a beet, a little gasp squeaking out of his mouth. Amaya was nearly too surprised at that to put her glasses back on, but as she did and he came into slightly sharper focus, an astounding revelation _also_ came into focus, causing her to stumble backwards a step or two. Her stammered words tumbled out of her mouth almost of their own volition.

"Do… do you… _like_ me? Like, _like me_ like me?"

Romeo also recoiled at that, the thought that he'd been subconsciously mulling over for the past two weeks slamming into him headlong now that it was finally spoken aloud. His eyes wide, his fingers clenching and unclenching and reclenching, he struggled to find words to deny the accusation before realizing that the length of the silence was all the confirmation either of them needed.

Despite the fact that her expression mirrored his stunned, stupefied countenance, Romeo felt entirely at her mercy in a way he'd never been before. It was terrifying. And exhilarating. But mostly terrifying.

 _I've got to turn this around! I've got to use this to my advantage somehow!_

He quickly snapped his jaw shut and threw what he hoped was another smug smirk in her direction. "What are you gonna do about it?" he teased.

It worked; Amaya looked even more taken aback by that response. Romeo forced a chortle at that, trying to compel away the blush that still engulfed his face. _Please tone it down, get back to normal,_ he begged himself, _I have to stay on top of her._ Yet he knew that she held every advantage in the world over him merely by standing so close.

She abruptly lifted her chin again with a fiercely determined look that gave Romeo knots in his stomach again. "I'm not going to do anything about it," she declared. "I'm going to treat you just like I always have. This isn't going to change anything about that. So what are _you_ going to do about _that?"_

"I'm not going to do anything either," Romeo sneered, leaning in closer to her, ignoring how this reignited the fierce blush burning across his cheeks. "After I win this science fair, I'm going to go right back to being the most awesome, fiendish villain you've ever seen. And when I take over the world, I'm going to keep you in a little gilded cage."

Amaya snorted, crossing her arms and turning her head away from him. "Yeah right. You don't even know what 'take over the world' means."

"I do too! And someday soon, you'll see just how much I underst—"

Applause broke out from the auditorium, and Amaya squeaked in terror.

"Oh no! Oh no! I'm up next! I'm up next and I'm not ready! Where's my project?!" Flustered, she stumbled backwards again, hurrying awkwardly to where all of the poster boards were and pawed through them with trembling hands, grabbing hers. "Where's my anemometer?!"

She shook her head back and forth wildly before a slightly exasperated sigh reached her consciousness. Looking up, she saw Romeo holding it out for her, his annoyance not enough to hide the blush that was still on his cheeks.

Amaya took it from him, the corner of her mouth twitching upwards in thanks before grasping her poster board in her other hand and hurrying to the edge of the wings, trying to control her breathing. Which was impossible.

Well, she'd wanted answers… and now she knew e _xactly_ what her new normal with Romeo was.

She was only six! She'd assumed she had a good few years before having to worry over the whole "he likes me, he likes me not" nonsense… not until middle school, at least. And even then, it would have been far preferable for the crush to come from someone other than her archnemesis!

She continued to take deep, fast breaths, trying to pull her focus back on the presentation that she had to make in front of the entire school… in _this_ frame of mind.

Her earlier anxiety had been _nothing_ compared to this.

"…and next up," the principal was announcing, "our representative from the first grade, Amaya Devereaux!"

Amaya moved onstage as quickly as she could during the applause, wanting to put everything that had just happened backstage behind her, figuratively and literally. Her hands still shaking, she set up her poster board and turned to face the audience, the anemometer in her hands trembling with the rest of her, and forced a painful, anxious smile. In the back row she could see her parents, still beaming with pride. Further down front, Connor and Greg sat with the rest of their class, and their applause was the most enthusiastic of anyone's.

The principal adjusted the microphone to Amaya's height before stepping to the side, and there was a moment of quiet as Amaya scrambled to reorient herself to her presentation.

"Um—hello, fellow students and science enthusiasts," she said, only a slight stammer getting in her way (although keeping it at bay required a _lot_ of effort). "My name is Amaya, and—and I'll be presenting to you my findings from my handmade weathervane, also known as an anemometer." She held it up for display. "It's used for measuring wind speeds by taking note of the angle between the spinning apparatus, which are plastic cups on mine, and the vertical support. I took measurements both on the ground level and at a higher altitude in a treehouse to see if there was any noticeable difference between the two."

She took a deep breath and motioned towards the left side of her poster board, where she had attached a photograph of an eagle soaring against the clouds. "I chose this project for two reasons. The first is that I'm really interested in weather patterns and want to better understand how they work. And the second is that I'm also fascinated by all types of birds, and I wanted to get a feel as to how the wind might feel different to them rather than to us on the ground. Of course," she added with a nervous giggle, "there's no way of knowing for sure what birds are feeling, but it's fun to imagine." She gulped. This was sounding a lot worse out loud than it had on paper. Couldn't stop now, though, had to keep going… "This anemometer you see here is actually my second one. The first was broken accidentally, so this one was made with stronger materials. The base is braided with three fuzzy pipe cleaners, which makes it flexible in the wind but not bendy or fragile."

Setting it down on the table, she then motioned to the center of her poster board, where she had graphed her findings via line graphs. "Here are my measurements graphed out. This first graph is the couple of measurements I got with the first model—the red line is the measurements at ground level, and the blue ones at a higher altitude. And the second graph is the measurements from the second, sturdier model. My hypothesis was that the wind would be stronger at the higher altitude, and as you can see, it generally was—but this of course depended on the day." She gestured to a point on the second graph where the graphed dots reached their highest points on the line. "This particular day, for example, was very windy, and the wind speed on the ground was higher than it had been previous days at the higher altitude—but, of course, the speed at the higher altitude was even slightly higher than that."

Taking a step to her right so that the right side of the board with a stock image of an anemometer and a few typed notes was now visible to the audience, Amaya nervously clasped her hands, trying to not focus on how plain and empty her board seemed to look. "So, in conclusion, it's hard to comment too much on what's basically a short study, but my hypothesis appeared to be correct. It still made me wonder, though, about what the difference must be like higher up, where more birds are in the air. Sometimes I wish I could just… ask them." She gulped again. Oh man did she sound like a moron. "B-but I guess that's what science is all about… always wanting to ask more questions. We live in a big world, and there's so much we still don't understand. I look forward to asking more questions." She exhaled, the ringing in her ears finally quieted, and quickly curtsied. "Thank you."

The audience clapped warmly, and Amaya's eyes quickly darted to Connor and Greg, who were applauding excitedly again and giving her encouraging smiles. She managed a shaky smile in return and looked back at her parents, who were applauding wildly.

"Thank you, Amaya," said the principal, who also had a proud, approving smile on her face. Amaya finally felt that she could breathe a little easier. Of course, that had a lot to do with the fact that she was _finished._ She felt much lighter as she folded up her poster board, grabbed her anemometer, and exited the stage.

Romeo was waiting in the wings, in a very staged expression of boredom. "That was decent," he said.

Amaya grimaced, but still tried to keep her smile. "That means a lot coming from you. Thanks."

Romeo just snorted dismissively at her, but the blush was creeping up on his cheeks again.

"And now," said the principal, "please welcome our second grade presenter, Romeo Mecano."

 _Ha! I finally know his last name!_ Amaya thought to herself in satisfaction.

Romeo had had more time than Amaya had to compose himself after making his very unintended revelation to her, and although her smile had shaken him up a bit again, he still managed to make his way onstage haughty and aloof… well, at first, anyway. The sound of applause, applause for _him,_ wasn't one he was accustomed to, and it was making him almost giddy. When he set his poster board and mysterious wooden, square box down on the table and the applause petered off, he turned to face the audience with a smirk. "No, go on, keep going!"

The audience murmured with confusion… except for Connor and Greg, who were sitting tensely in their seats, shooting Romeo warning glares. Romeo discreetly rolled his eyes at them. What did they think he was going to do, anyway?

"Yeah, you're right, save it for the end, when you'll be _really_ impressed." Romeo continued to sport an evil grin. "Maybe even impressed enough to declare me the ruler of the _world!"_

There was an awkward silence.

"But I digress," Romeo continued with a flippant wave of his hand. "Let's get on with what you're all here for—to ooh and aah over my science project. I'm sure you're all thinking that this must have been a walk in the park for a genius like me, but that's not quite true. I had a dickens of a time trying to figure out just what I was going to do in the first place! See, that's the thing about science. It's in _everything._ Being good at science means you're good at _everything—_ I know, I know, I'm remarkably impressive. Hold your applause. But that meant…" Romeo smirked and scratched his chin thoughtfully, enjoying the theatrics of it all. Not _quite_ as fun as theatrical villainy, but pretty close. "That meant that I couldn't choose just _any_ old project for this science fair. It had to be something that embodied the scientific method in of itself. Something that represents all of the precise mental calculations and creative problem solving to create something great. Something diabolical." Romeo shrugged. "Great, diabolical, they're one and the same, right?"

There was some awkward, light laughter at that, as if the audience wasn't sure if he was making a joke or not.

"Anyway," Romeo declared, "once I took all that into consideration, the choice was clear." He snapped his goggles down over his eyes, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a large, rectangular remote.

"That is the look of a kid who's going to blow up the school," a kid in the front row of the audience murmured.

"Ugh, _no chance,"_ said Romeo dismissively. "That would be so messy! I'd just take over the school and use it as my headquarters instead."

More awkward "was-that-a-joke?" laughter from the audience.

"Anyway, stop interrupting me. Behold my latest invention…" He pushed the large red button on the remote, and the square box abruptly flipped open and folded out, revealing the board inside. _"The self-playing chess board!"_ A robotic arm shot out, opened a side drawer, and assembled the pieces at near lightning speed.

The audience all gasped at the spectacle, impressed… except for Connor and Greg, who were agitated enough that they looked about ready to leap out of their seats.

"I know… pretty cool, eh?" Romeo said in self-satisfaction, making himself ignore the two male PJs. What was their deal, anyway; surely Amaya had told them exactly what his project was the day she herself had found out. But speaking of Amaya… Romeo gulped, the very first crack in his confident presentation appearing at the mere _thought_ of her. "Scientific progress doesn't happen in a vacuum, though, not even for a vastly intelligent scientist like myself. The inspiration for this project was the sad, woeful tale of the previous presenter, Amaya Devereaux, who has had a lot of trouble finding a chess partner." His eyes darted to the wings, pleased (and annoyingly flattered) that Amaya was standing there, watching his presentation and paying attention, and was blushing a bit at the sudden attention. "I mean, she could always play a computer program online, but there's just something about the physical board and pieces in front of you that can't be replicated without a human partner. Until now!"

Jumping to the other side of his chess board, Romeo continued gleefully, "This board is programmed to play as the opponent of anyone without one! It knows all of the legal moves that can be made, it tracks the human player's moves and plans its own accordingly, and it'll move its own pieces without upsetting the rest of the board! My calculations for the programming and building of the AI are on my poster board," he said almost dismissively, waving half-heartedly to it, "but I'm sure this goes over most of your heads, and besides, the best way to show what this board is capable of is to see it in _action!_ And just to prove that I'm not manipulating anything on _my_ end…" He turned to the other side of the stage, where the principal was standing to the side, looking genuinely surprised. "Do you know how to play chess?"

"Um… well, yes—"

"Perfect! Come over here and play an opening move as white."

The principal, still a bit taken aback by this unexpected request, carefully approached the board, Romeo taking a courteous step back, and moved a white pawn one space ahead. The robotic hand immediately responded by picking up one of the black pawns and placing it a space ahead as well.

The audience gasped again, their fascination palpable in the air. Even Connor and Greg finally looked more impressed than on edge.

"Yes, like I said earlier, I'm quite impressive," Romeo said simply, shrugging and smirking at the crowd. "This board will play through an entire game, and while we could sit here and play that through—" indeed, the principal had made another move, an astounded smile on her lips, and the board had also continued with its own move— "I think I've made my point. With this board, one has _no excuse_ to let their mental facilities grow slack. And in keeping an already brilliant mind constantly sharp with the stimulation that a game like chess provides, who knows what amazing ideas could follow! So many possibilities… maybe even leading to… I don't know… _world domination!"_

The audience blinked practically in unison.

Romeo pushed another button on his remote, and the robotic hand abruptly swept up the chess pieces, stored them back in their compartment, and folded back up with the rest of the board, the inconspicuous wooden box taking its place. Moving past the startled principal, Romeo gathered the box and his poster board, and at suddenly grasping the rather awkward silence, he turned back to the audience and announced, "Alright, I'm done! You can applaud now!"

The silence lasted another second or two before the sound of enthusiastic clapping finally broke it.

"Wow…" The principal was still quite taken aback. "Thank you, Romeo, for sharing your fascinating talents with us."

Romeo just grinned at her self-assuredly.

In the wings, holding her poster board and potato-turned-battery, Emily sighed dejectedly to Amaya, who was standing next to her. "Man, _that's_ a tough act to follow."

"Sure is!" Romeo said as he brushed past them. "Have fun!"

Amaya's eyes followed him for only a second before turning back to the stage to continue watching the science fair, trying to focus on something, anything other than marveling at the fact that Romeo had actually _credited_ her onstage.

But it was impossible.

This new normal was going to take a _lot_ of getting used to.

…

After all six students had presented their projects, they took the stage together to pose for pictures while the principal consulted with the other teachers, presumably judging and deciding who was the winner. Amaya grimaced through them, trying hard to smile, her parents' overenthusiastic zeal while snapping a zillion photos making her embarrassed on top of everything else. The uncertainty of the results of the presentation was practically gnawing at her, her composure nearly completely eaten away by now.

With the three older kids standing behind them, Amaya was sandwiched between Adrian and Romeo, although thankfully Romeo wasn't leering at her quite like he had been the past three weeks. Their eyes kept darting to each other for split seconds before just as quickly darting away, blushes twinging their cheeks again. The shock of what she had discovered was still utterly flummoxing her, even without taking into account the fretfulness over the project, turning Amaya into a mental wreck who could only flash the most forced of smiles.

 _He has a crush on me?! How can he have a crush on me?! He must be playing some sort of trick on me…_ Except, even in the throes of anxiety, Amaya had to concede that Romeo having a crush on her made a lot of his behavior make a great deal of sense. No, this wasn't a trick. This was the truth. Somehow, this was how things were now.

 _I have to deal with it… I have to cope with it… wasn't that what Romeo accused me of before, that I can't cope? I really have to learn how to now…_

"Alright!" the principal announced, taking the stage again. Amaya's stomach lurched. The moment had arrived. She was going to announce which one of them had taken the top prize. Everything was either going to come together or come crashing down. "May I have your attention, please?" The chatter quieted down, and the parents still taking pictures quickly took their seats. "First of all, let's give another round of applause for all of our talented participants today."

The applause thundered against Amaya's ears. She clasped her hands together anxiously.

"With this being not only a project of teamwork, but also a friendly competition, we have a winner to announce who will be representing our school in the regional competition. Now, obviously the strength of the students' individual projects was a major factor in the judging, but it wasn't the _only_ factor."

Amaya perked up hopefully. If more than just the project counted, maybe she still had a chance…

"And, surprising as it may seem, at the very beginning I was quite disappointed in the prospects for an extremely important metric."

Amaya blinked in confusion, and she could see the slight confusion of the audience and feel the confusion around her of her teammates/competitors.

"It is, of course, a testament to these students' abilities and determination that they were so driven to complete their very best work, but they were not working _together._ Teamwork was nonexistent. They had forgotten the 'friendly' part of this friendly competition. But, without any intervention from me, about a week into the project they put aside their differences and finally all came together for work on the group report, and their individual projects were bolstered by each other's recommendations as well. One student in particular took great strides to not only stand up for himself, but for others as well and get the ball rolling on inclusivity."

Amaya drew in her breath, her last fleeting hopes of pulling off a win dashed, because there could be only one student she was referring to…

"And that, coupled with his innovative project and _very_ unique, creative presentation makes him our clear winner!" The principal held out a certificate. "Congratulations, Romeo!"

"What? I won? I—I mean, of course I won!" Romeo crowed triumphantly as the audience applauded his win. "I _told_ you I would!" This was directed to his fellow students on the stage, but Amaya in particular.

"Shut up and take the certificate already," she hissed at him, although she (along with the other science fair participants) was still clapping for him dutifully.

"Envy really doesn't suit you, bird brain!" he laughed at her before stepping forward and accepting his award.

Amaya sighed but continued to clap, hoping that she didn't look too disappointed. She had, after all, suspected this outcome from the very first day… and Romeo had won it fair and square. Also, she reminded herself, preparing for the regional competition would probably continue to keep his focus on things other than villainy and world domination for a bit longer. He'd be out of her hair for a bit.

Strangely, that thought didn't really make her feel any better. If anything, it made her even _more_ disappointed.

She really didn't want to lose him as a villain. Or as… whatever they'd become to each other.

The thought shocked her, and she gritted her teeth at it, hoping and praying that they could leave the stage soon so that, maybe, she could get started on thinking straight again after this insane roller coaster of a day.

…

The science fair was officially over, but there was still mulling around in the auditorium, Amaya's parents still wanting to take more pictures of her. "You did _so good,_ sweetie! We're so proud of you!" they said, having her pose once more with her anemometer. Amaya's smile was shaky and forced and couldn't last much longer.

Luckily, Connor and Greg made their way to her at that moment, their smiles subdued yet still encouraging. "Hey, Amaya!" Connor exclaimed.

"Great job!" Greg said.

"Yeah," Amaya said, her fake half-smile still barely hanging on. Her parents took a step back and began chatting with her teacher, respectfully giving her some time with her friends.

"You gave it your best shot, and that's what's important," Connor said, a bit quieter and reassuringly. "I know it's hard to lose… especially to Romeo, of all people… but you have nothing to be ashamed of."

"Yeah," Greg agreed, placing an encouraging hand on her shoulder. "You worked hard on that project and everyone could tell."

Amaya gulped, realizing that they thought she was just upset over losing. While that was of course part of the reason behind her disappointment, the _real_ cause of her troubles right now was trying to grapple with all these new revelations. And she wasn't ready to tell Connor and Greg… not right now, anyway, not until she'd made even the tiniest bit of progress of sorting through them herself. And even then, there was _no way_ she was going to tell them that Romeo had a crush on her.

"I know," she said aloud, giving her friends what felt like a more genuine smile—at least, she sure hoped it was. "It is kind of a bummer that I didn't win. But I'll get over it. It is just a science fair, right? At least we still beat Romeo where it counts." She winked at them.

"That's the spirit!" laughed Connor.

"Oh, and thanks," said Amaya with a grateful smile. "I really appreciate the encouragement."

"No problem!" smiled Greg.

Amaya noticed the din of the crowd was slowly growing quieter. "Looks like everyone's leaving. I'd better go backstage and get my stuff."

"Do you need any help getting them?" Greg asked her.

Amaya shook her head. "No, I can get them. Give me just a second."

The friends exchanged one more smile before Amaya quickly darted back up on the stage and past the curtains.

The wall where the all of the students had left their poster boards was now empty except for hers. Amaya, surprised, picked hers up along with her anemometer left on the floor, not having expected that she would be the last one to be back there.

The metallic twang of a spring clattering against steel filled the backstage air.

Well, _almost_ the last one back there.

She took a few steps forward and found Romeo standing off in a corner, carefully tinkering with the remote to his robotic chess board, the winning certificate placed on top of it, practically forgotten. Amaya found it weird that he was choosing here and now to apparently make adjustments, but regardless of the reasoning for his timing, he was so engrossed in the task that he didn't notice her. Even now, after securing a win, his focus was only on ensuring his device was perfect.

Amaya bit her lip. It would be very easy to just back up and leave without attracting his attention. But… but she had to be gracious in her loss. That would be the heroic thing to do, after all.

So she set her own project and board down, and said quietly, "Hey, Romeo."

He snapped his head up at her, the scowl on his face only taking a second or two to appear. Maybe soon it would be instantaneous again, Amaya mused to herself. "What?" he demanded.

Amaya took a deep breath. "Congratulations on your win. You definitely deserved it." She extended a hand towards him.

Romeo hesitated, and Amaya felt a gnawing at the pit of her stomach that he might refuse a handshake from her yet again… until finally, he grasped her hand and gave it one firm squeeze and shake. Amaya grinned and did likewise.

"Wipe that silly grin off your face," Romeo muttered, the telltale blush seeping back onto his face. He let go of her hand and gave her a sly smirk. "I told you I'd win."

"I know," said Amaya with a slight sigh. "Have… have you been back here this entire time?"

"Yeah, so?" Romeo shrugged mildly.

Amaya adjusted her classes in a gesture of confusion. With all of the talking and picture taking and general parents-fawning-over-their-kids that had gone on even after the presentation had ended, it seemed downright bizarre that the _winner_ hadn't been taking part. "Are your parents here?" she blurted out.

Romeo winced at the seemingly innocuous comment. He knew she hadn't meant to touch a nerve… and she _definitely_ hadn't asked that either wanting or expecting the sob story of the mother that abandoned the family when he was just a baby, or the father that was so distant and neglectful that he forgot his own son's existence half the time—and the other half of the time he couldn't have cared less about it. "No," he simply spat out harshly, turning away from her. "What do you care, anyway?"

Amaya's gaze fell downcast with guilt and empathy. She hadn't gotten specifics, but his blunt answer clearly indicated that his parents weren't involved in his life for whatever reason. "Of course I care," she said softly. "It's really sad that you don't have anyone here to congratulate you."

Romeo sighed, the sound genuinely forlorn in spite of the scowl that was still on his face. "Well… _you're_ here," he murmured almost inaudibly.

Amaya, surprised, could say nothing to that at first.

Suddenly snorting crossly, Romeo scooped up his chess box in one arm and grabbed his poster board with the other, in a motion of ending the conversation. He had to get out of there. The more time he spent with her, the more he kept melting into a vulnerable little ball of insecurities, and being a villain, _her_ villain, he obviously couldn't have that. It was all his stupid emotions messing with him and carrying him away anyway, he realized. Sure, Amaya had congratulated him and felt sad for him, but that was because she was a _hero_ and was just doing that stuff because it was _expected_ of her, not because she actually _did_ care. She could take her faux compassion and—

Amaya suddenly brightened, hopefully. "Will I see you tonight?"

This time, Romeo couldn't stop the silly, dopey grin from breaking across his face, let alone the fierce blush. Hopefully! _Hopefully!_ She _wanted_ to see him again! Even if it was in the context of his being a villain, she was _hoping_ she'd see him again!

And that, of course, was exactly _how_ she was going to see him again. He didn't have anything planned yet, but for her he'd come up with his most amazing world domination plan _ever,_ just so she could fly in to try to stop him.

His grin morphed to a crafty one, and as he walked past her he playfully nudged her arm with his elbow. "Yeah. See you tonight, bird brain."

Amaya smiled at him as he disappeared into the wings and out of sight, the realization that she'd more or less just sent a villain loose to cause mayhem that night only barely registering. Gathering her own project again, she went the opposite direction, back onstage and down into the auditorium, where Greg, Connor, and her parents were waiting for her.

"Are you ready to go home, Amaya?" her mother asked her.

"Yep! Just a second." She leaned over to her friends. "HQ tonight," she said quietly.

"What's going on?" Connor asked.

"I don't know," shrugged Amaya. "But something will be going on that we'll need to be there for."

"Why are you smiling?" Greg asked, flummoxed.

"It's just really nice for things to get back to normal," Amaya said with a laugh. "I'll see you there!" She rejoined her parents, Connor and Greg shrugged a bit before returning the laugh and responding, "Alright, see you there!" as Amaya followed her parents out of the auditorium.

Yes, she marveled to herself, it _did_ feel good to be back to normality. Even this surprising new normal of hers. Whatever she faced now, she knew she had finally learned to cope with it.

And _that_ was a normal to be celebrated indeed.


End file.
